Enfants Perdus
by Lang Noi
Summary: A Critical Role story; campaign two spoilers through 26-28 (Warning: OCs). When a band of soldiers is tasked with a dangerous mission that is likely to end in high casualties, they're sometimes called a forlorn hope. In French, "enfants perdus." Literally "Lost Children," the majority die facing impossible odds. Not this time. Or: The Mighty Nein get a little lucky.
1. To Hell

**AN:** If you're wondering, yes, this is sort of written therapy. Half reaction, half wish fulfillment, and all bizarrely cathartic to me. Sometimes, it's most important to create instead of destroying, and I just...kinda did that. And it helped. Hopefully, this thing helps someone else a little bit, too. This particular chapter was written in the _immediate_ aftermath of episode 26, so details about Shadycreek Run are a bit off.

Also, this is my first fic in the fandom. And my first time writing these characters. I fully expect some stuff to be off, so thanks for your patience.

Last Note: I spent a lot of time making sure everything that happens in this self-indulgent mess of a story is rules-legal. If there's something that makes you go WTF from that perspective, PM me for a proper answer. Or leave a review and I'll respond.

* * *

All in all, Tirane's herb-identifying mission was a clusterfuck.

On the sliding scale of ways to be dignified while cowering, Tirane didn't even merit consideration. While sure, she'd already been on edge and skirting the roadways—anyplace around Shadycreek Run was riddled with monsters, only some of which had the decency to _look_ like they'd eat you alive—spotting a slave-taker caravan was way past anything she was prepared for today. She'd seen people around, because she could see in the dark way better than anyone she knew, then it was just a fucking cacophony of spells going off one after another.

She'd never been more ashamed, yet relieved, by those lessons about keeping her head down. Even before she peeked over a hill to see Cone of Cold busted out like it was _nothing_ , there'd been too many slavers to fight. Tirane wasn't a real veteran adventurer, but it paid to be able to pick them out. Especially the scumbag types.

She hid for a long time.

After, Tirane shoved her red curls out of her face and back under her hood as she hiked down the back of the hill, cutting through underbrush and long grass. The late autumn frost whipped at her hands and her cloak, making an absolute racket that might've had her cringing if she thought there was anyone left still alive. Her tome was tucked safely away and bandits tended to leave their dead behind, so it'd probably be okay to look for those damned—

There was arguing, once she got close enough to hear it. It sounded like it'd been going on a while.

 _Shit_.

Tirane, it had to be said, was not a master of stealth. Warlocks didn't need to be. Generally.

But this time her luck was apparently even worse than normal, because emerging from the bushes ended with four weapons pointed at her face. Crossbow bolts, quarterstaff, and two dwarf-wielded weapons that were bigger than Tirane's entire arm. It was, all told, not the best way to start a conversation with people keyed up from a fight they'd _lost_.

"We," said a woman at the front, wearing shades of blue and pointing the quarterstaff at Tirane's forehead, "have just had a _real_ shitty day _._ Who are you?"

Tirane kind of just assumed they'd lost, but… They weren't the slavers. Not the right look. Plus this woman was breathing hard, with red eyes and tear tracks and a jaw set harder than a bear trap, and slavers didn't give a single solitary fuck about anything but money. But they were alive. Somehow.

"Hi, I'm Tirane." The scowl on the woman's face prompted Tirane to hold up her hands in surrender, cloak falling back to expose her tome and her halfway-new boots. She didn't wear robes—Riyaz didn't see the point, and she stole his stuff—but kinda figured it was a little obvious she made with the spellcasting. "Sorry, I just—I didn't mean to sneak up on you—"

"You didn't," said the shortest member of the party, hooded and wielding a hand crossbow.

"—But I, uh," Tirane stammered as the axe blade got closer, just a little. Instead of giving in, though, Tirane said all in a rush, "Are you all right?"

This seemed to bring her up short. "What."

 _Okay._ Okay, she could do this. Tirane slowly lowered her arms, then said as quickly as she could, "I don't know what happened here but there was a lot of magic flying around and you haven't killed me or tried to stick me in shackles, so…" Deep breath. "I'm gonna assume you're not slavers. Right?"

"Fuck no," said the woman in blue, who seemed to be the spokesperson. "We aren't—we were trying to _fuck them up_ but it…" She hissed in pain as an injury pulled, turning a little in place. "We…"

"Don't move and you don't die." The dwarf woman, probably realizing Tirane was about as threatening as a bunny rabbit, stowed both weapons immediately after the threat. There was a story there, between the crinkled brow and cold sweat and shaking hands. Her attention wasn't even on Tirane, not really, so she _almost_ stepped forward before the _snikt_ of a cocking crossbow made her freeze in place.

It was a very tiny, angry version of the one on Tirane's back. And the little hooded figure said, in a raspy voice far higher than anyone else's, " _Don't_ move."

"Got it," Tirane said immediately, trying to avoid doing much more than moving her eyeballs. "Uh—"

"Look," said the woman in blue in a tone that smashed as much bitterness as pain into hardly any sound, "This is not the _time_ for more people come around looking for someone to solve their fucking problems for them." She whirled on Tirane, snapping, "So fuck off. Come back _never_."

"I—" The thing was, Tirane probably should have done as asked and left, to go and tell Riyaz that whatever weird human-looking root he wanted to see was probably frozen to death under some random asshat's spellwork.

But by this point, Tirane could see over the initial barrage of unfriendly faces to see the actual mess of the battlefield. Even the woman in blue was a good half-foot shorter, giving her a decent view. More perceptive than clever, and more headstrong than either, Tirane pointedly looked directly over the woman's shoulder.

Cart tracks. Another redhead, a man in a patchwork coat, leaning over a rainbow riot of color, unmoving on the ground. Blood here and there. double the usual frost damage for this time of year. A fallen tree, right across the road. Four people, two seconds from vibrating out of their own skins because she was there, and it wouldn't do to fall apart in front of a stranger.

The very air tasted of loss, rage, and sinking despair. She hardly needed to tap into her powers at all to know.

Tirane took it all in for a little bit, breaking her silence by saying, "I just… You look like you need some help." She put as much sincerity as she could into her voice, half pleading, "I promise, that's all I wanted to know."

 _Gods, I hope it doesn't mean heading to the Run._ Riyaz still had nightmares years after leaving. Mitra and Khalil hadn't been _kicked_ out, because the same people who'd do the kicking would just kill if they thought it'd be faster, but they treated the place like the maze of deadly entanglements it was. And Tirane wasn't the one who could change her appearance at will to avoid trouble, so…

It made an impression.

"Look, I swear I'm not trying to be a pain, or to cause trouble, or anything like that," Tirane went on. "It's just—you're hurt, and I know someone who can help."

Behind the woman in blue and the dwarf with the cigar, the smallest party member was totally uninterested in what Tirane had to say. The little figure darted off, instead, toward the redhead and the…toward whoever was down. And not moving. Neither was the redhead, but that was more like shock and awful, awful pain than because he was physically hurt.

Didn't look good.

Tirane steeled her spine, then said in the same soft voice, "Please. Can I do anything?"

Under her breath, the woman in blue hissed, " _So_ awesome how people wanna be Samaritans _after_ the fight's over. Real convenient."

Okay, fair. The fight being a thing was definitely something Tirane knew before walking down into this emotional killing field. So, she let the comment pass. Instead, she pried her tome out from under her cloak and said, while presenting it front and center, "If there's anything…"

"Isn't like _we_ can do fucking anything." And she let Tirane through without punching her in the face, which was one punch less than what she'd been expecting. Still, she hovered right behind Tirane's shoulder like the punch was going to happen sooner or later.

The ground became flat-out icy as Tirane's boots crunched forward, her ritual tome clamped under her arm and her hood still pinned to her hair. She could follow the wagon ruts off into the distance, chasing the dust trail the slavers left behind, but the dwarf lady was looking the same way, so even if she really wanted to run there'd be no point. After saying all those fancy words, Tirane wondered if there'd be anything for her to _do_.

"Hi," Tirane said softly as she knelt next to the person on the ground. While the redhead she'd noticed before was human, not really listening to her or anything, and looked worse than Riyaz after a week of nightmares, Tirane had kind of expected that. So, instead, she said, "I'm Tirane. I might be able to help some," to the now-obviously-a-goblin jammed up against the man's side.

"What can you do?" the goblin asked in her warbling voice. "Can you—are you a healer?"

"No," Tirane said, and watched the spark of interest go right out of both the grungy man and the lady in blue. She could fix a little of that. "But I know a ritual that might help with getting to one, and I know at least one way to _find_ one."

And hopefully Khalil and Mitra had diamonds on hand.

Not to mention she might need a spell to _get_ to them, which Riyaz didn't always have prepared. The twins could be nearly anywhere if they wanted to be.

Actually… Hm. Tirane probably needed to use Sending just to make sure both of those things happened. Well, she supposed that's what her pact spells were for. Time to get started on something more immediate.

Still, what she'd said seemed to get their attention. But hope seemed a bit beyond them for now, and she could see why.

The person on the ground had a name, and a history and a bunch of friends, Tirane thought, but it was all about to be shorter than it ought if she couldn't pull this off. A lavender tiefling with lots of tattoos, jewelry, red eyes, and a giant hole in his chest. Didn't seem to have the kind of injuries that'd interfere with Raise Dead, so Tirane nodded to herself and flipped to the appropriate page. The blood was still wet and getting into her clothes as she knelt next to him, and that was about as good a sign as any when things got this grim.

"Okay, so the spell is called Gentle Repose. It's a ten-minute casting, but it means you'll have ten whole more days to work with things like Raise Dead," Tirane said, more because she needed to say something to fill her own ears with chatter and not soft sobbing. Even if she wasn't a bleeding heart, grief was kind of contagious. When it wasn't, it still took all of Tirane's focus to get the spell done in a normal-noise environment. This was anything but. "You probably won't need 'em, but it'll also stop decay and nobody creepy will be able to mess with him. That's what I'm gonna do."

"You don't even know our names, and you're gonna do this for us?" the woman in blue asked, in a voice like she'd tried to choke down a scream or a sob until it just tore her up inside.

"Yeah." Tirane pulled two copper coins and a packet of salt from her component pouch, placing them on the pages of her spellbook. "Any chance I get to make people hurt a bit less, I'll take it. I can't do a lot, though, so I… I can do stuff like this." Tirane sat back a little and picked up the salt first.

Gentle Repose, really, was one of about a bajillion stopgaps people had made once against necromancers and death, and also decay as a side bonus. Tirane didn't know what part had come first, or was the focus in the end, but she needed ten minutes to basically prepare the tiefling for transport before anything evil happened.

Two copper coins to close the eyes, like payment for the River Styx. A bit of salt to make sure nature and un-nature knew not to mess around. And ten minutes of quiet spellwork in Elvish, because it was foreign enough to count. Just by a little.

"I-I'm sorry," said the dwarf woman, while Tirane tried to block it out with her own voice, just a little. "For not really knowing what we were getting into."

"It's your fault we even tried—you said you wanted them dead! You thought we could take them!"

"No, I fucking didn't, I just went along after saying 'no' because you guys were so fucking hopeful!" Deep breath. "You let me hire you for—"

" _Molly_ gave you—" A sob.

"Hey, no, no. Dammit, Beau, just fucking punch me."

Instead of responding, Beau slammed her fist down in the frost-covered ground hard enough to crack it. " _Fuck you, Molly!_ You didn't have to fucking _die_ to just—" Another wracking sob.

Tirane did her best not to flinch, and tried really hard not to think about the sheer _grief_ radiating off this group like heat.

"Caleb?" asked the goblin.

No response there, at least for a little while.

Whatever was said after that, Tirane didn't hear much other than gently accented _something_ , because she was almost done with her spell. Not the trickiest part, but rolling a vowel or thirty always felt a bit too much like vibrato. It was weird.

There was a little electric _pop_ in the air when the spell took hold. Tirane's hair frizzled like it always did around necromancy, no matter how mild, then settled.

"You gonna come with?" the woman in blue asked the dwarf.

"Yeah," was the reply. "I need to—I need to see _them_ through, too. But you guys are another thing, too. There's a lot of things I need to fix. Especially now."

"I'm—look, I'm pissed off, but that wasn't really on you, Keg—"

"If you're _not_ gonna blame me, you can't blame yourself either. That's just fair."

"Nothing else has been…"

There was a ton of context here Tirane did _not_ have, but that didn't matter so much. The spell was done. And since she'd muttered her way through a lot of the technical details and requirements, the goblin girl was already winding a strip of bandage around the downed tiefling's eyes to keep the coins in place, like they had to be. After, they wrapped him all up in this big, gaudy thing depicting the Platinum Dragon, which was even more baffling, but no one would hear otherwise.

"So, where's your hideout?" asked the goblin, her big yellow eyes suspicious and shiny at once.

"I suggest," murmured the redhead, who'd been quiet until now, "that you be as forthright as you can."

Something funny settled over Tirane's brain, and she picked it out instantly. Her eyes narrowed a little even though she didn't fight the spell. And she very clearly thought, directly at him, _I know you're casting on me._

He flinched, just a bit, and his free hand darted toward his neck.

Weird.

"I'm not from the Run, but there're some places you can go, even there, that are almost safe," Tirane said instead of dwelling on it, pointing vaguely in the direction of the forest. Obeying the spell more because it was what she wanted than because she had to, Tirane rattled off, "I know someone who knows someone. And they might be able to help you get your friend back."

* * *

 _"Sending: Mitra, we need a five-hundred-gold diamond, please! Also, where the hell are you? We need Khalil, too! I found some people and they really—"_

 _"Your message got cut off. I can get the diamond and my brother. Meet me at the Hanged Man after dark. Be careful. Mitra out."_

* * *

"Sorry about this," Beau heard Tirane say as she helped guide their horses through underbrush way thicker than anything since the Labenda Swamp. It'd only been about a week and a half, but it felt way longer than that. "But the long way around is the only safe way in."

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Nott piped up, from the saddle just in front of Caleb. Their wizard was still a little out of it, but he'd answered yes or no questions a little. For now, Nott was in full mom mode and not likely to let up soon.

Not that Beau thought she shouldn't. They needed someone who could focus enough on anything to get things done, and Beau was only halfway there. Whenever she looked around, her eyes snapped back to the wrapped bundle lying over their third horse's back, and it felt like getting punched square in the chest every time. There'd been times, before, when she just wished Molly would shut the fuck up. And it'd happened in the worst way possible, and Beau would have taken the thoughts back if it mattered at all anymore.

"Yeah. There's Ed, just like I said he would be." Tirane climbed over a fallen log, stumbling to a stop with her hand landing flat on dead moss and tree trunk. "See how he's pointing the way?"

"Uh, no," said Beau, who still saw a redhead with her hand on a big, twisted conifer. "It's a fucking tree."

"The branch," Caleb said, in a voice as wrecked as Beau's was. His accent was thicker than it had been in ages. "It looks like a hand pointing, _ja_?"

Beau did look up, trying to see if there was anything special going on, before she spotted the branch that ended in five fronds like a human hand. Four were bent in toward the "palm," with the fifth extended toward a deer-track that went up the hill and through another goddamn thicket.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Beau rested her hand against the Platinum Dragon tapestry, long since gone cold. Molly's blood would be completely dry soon. _If_ that spell did what Tirane thought it did, they might have twenty days to get the fucking resurrection going. Fjord, Jester, and Yasha barely had another two, if they were lucky, before Keg's old friends sold them off and who _knew_ if they'd find them after? They were bleeding daylight away because the Mighty Nein just fucking _went for it_ , like they always did, and it all left Beau's hands rust-red and marked more by her nail imprints than split knuckles.

There was never enough _time._

"Question," Beau announced in a flat tone, once they were on their way again.

"Yeah?" Tirane responded. Keg didn't bother. Neither did Caleb or Nott.

"We killed someone down there." Had to make sure. Keg had already shared her side of the story, for whatever that was fucking worth. "Anyone you knew?"

"Nobody really knows the Iron Shepherds, 'cept them." Tirane scowled. Seemed honest enough. She'd almost cried earlier when Keg told her what group had fucked them up, before getting really quiet in a way Beau could already tell was not her usual manner. "And I didn't grow up here, anyway."

"How many times have you been to the Run?" Keg asked, which was probably a sign that the Nein's usual interrogation tactics were starting up. Even if Keg didn't really know about that, except on the receiving end.

Tirane pushed one of the tree's branches back so Caleb and Nott could get through, and Beau felt a chill go down her spine when she realized that the branch _stayed_ bent even after Tirane let go. "Enough times to know who to talk to."

"How?" Nott piped up. "We've heard it's an awful place already. She," and here, Nott pointed at Keg with her flask, "grew up there. And we've heard a lot about stabbing."

"Nott," Caleb muttered.

"I'm trying to be a detective! Not knowing enough was how we got _here_ ," Nott hissed back, and if Beau wasn't seeing things, her cat-yellow eyes were bright with tears.

But still, she subsided. The group fell into a miserable silence, though Tirane kept pushing forward. A stranger, somebody taking pity on the Nein… It burned, burned Beau's pride down to cinders, but losing half her fucking family and then losing Molly to _Lorenzo_ was—

Beau could deal with pity. Could deal with pain, with being wrung dry for favors because they didn't have any choice. Just so long as, for once, things went _against_ her expectations and turned out better than this goddamned streak they'd had.

They passed probably the better part of an hour in that quiet, until Tirane found an ancient, bald oak practically turned into a knot on itself right around a big patch of brambles that didn't look friendly.

"Okay, gonna get a bit of help from a druid friend," Tirane said, and didn't wait for a response she wasn't going to get. "The back way is kind of hard for horses."

And this tree, rather than just making creepy hands or whatever the fuck had happened with the other one, shook. With a creak of splitting wood and shaking scraps of branches, the tree lurched out of the ground like its roots were feet, dozens of more sturdy limbs bending slowly down to reach for Tirane's outstretched hand.

"Honestly," Beau said though everyone else was silent—and not because they were super surprised or anything. Maybe because they were polite. But fuck that. "If it wasn't for the day we'd just had, I'd _maybe_ give a fuck. Hurry it up."

Tirane nodded, then patted the nearest branch. With a little tilt of its crown, the tree shuffled away and forward until it crossed the path. Beau was a little too busy to watch what happened immediately, because the horses were busy freaking the fuck out about walking trees. Even if Keg's _actual strength_ was busy keeping both her and Nott's horses from moving, Beau wasn't about to let _anything_ dump Molly's body on the ground.

"Fucking—stay _still_ ," Beau snapped, her hands wrapped twice around the reins until she could try to force the spooked animal to heel. "It's just a tree. You see trees all the goddamn time!"

The horse didn't seem to agree, shrieking in terror as the tree crashed through the brambles in their way. Nonetheless, Beau wrestled with it until she could get her hands over its ears, swearing the entire time under her breath. Horses weren't built for this shit and Beau wasn't built for handling them, but they were all expanding their horizons today, weren't they?

"The way is clear," said a voice like someone deliberately trying to sound like a ghost, and Beau nearly snapped at Fjord before she realized it didn't sound like _anyone_ in their group. Especially not the one person who could do accents, who was _gone_. No, it was probably the tree, which was already trudging back to its spot from before.

 _Fucking druids._

"Thank you, Mister Tree Thing!" Nott said all at once, jittery as all hell. Her ears are pinned back, like Frumpkin's would be if the cat were a cat again.

"That's Merle," Tirane said.

"Thank you, Mister Merle," Nott corrected herself without so much as looking in Tirane's direction.

The tree bowed a little, again, and settled back down into the dirt as they continued to walk. Or ride. Or whatever. Even as they passed through, Beau could see the brambles sealing themselves up again like some weird wall, blocking the rest of the trail from view.

"What's this druid guy like?" Beau asked, once she was sure the magical bullshit was over.

She was digging the heel of her hand into her eye, thinking distantly how much of a disaster she felt and probably looked like, when Tirane answered with, "He's a hermit who makes trees walk around. If you see a bear, it's probably him."

"And him, and the other two, they're all just...gonna help us. Just like that." Beau didn't even bother trying to rein in her skepticism. It hadn't gotten enough of a workout lately, and now it was back with a vengeance.

Tirane nodded, already steering the horses into the next patch of hell-forest. "Mm-hm."

"Well, fuck, with an argument like that…" Beau trailed off with a sigh. It shook her down to her bones. "Sure, let's fuckin' do this."

"And a point goes in the 'evil witch who's gonna eat us' column," Nott muttered from the back, but no one joined in. Jester's absence, once again, ached like a physical thing.

"Is this really the time for that?" Keg asked, sounding exhausted down to her bones.

"It's not that they'll help you." Tirane sighed. "They'll help me."

And there the conversation died again, which almost hurt to think.

By the end of it all, they stumbled into the farthest outskirts of Shadycreek Run. _The_ town. Their horses nickered when they had solid ground under their hooves again, and every single one of them was thoroughly sick of the entire day. The sun burned dim, long behind the trees, and it'd only been half a day of wilderness, but it felt like a lifetime since this morning. Since the beginning of the week. Since… Since things were last okay.

"There it is. The Run," Keg said softly, chewing on the end of her cigar. "The Hanged Man is near the edge. Cheap-ass place with no rooms and ale that tastes like horse piss. It doesn't have enough class for _Lorenzo_. Not anymore."

Tirane shrugged, her hand on the side of the horse's neck. "Mitra probably picked it on purpose. I mean, why go there if you can afford better?"

"That's my question." Beau glared at them both.

"Mitra," Tirane said after a second's thought, "is super shady. She can get her hands on anything if she stabs the right person. And I think she might've done that."

"...Well, she'd fit right in," Keg remarked, and if her eyes drifted to Molly's body, Beau gave up and let her have her fucking regrets. Even if Molly had been some random, colorful, helpful stranger to Keg, that distance probably saved her.

Beau would have given a lot to live in that headspace for a bit.

Caleb, with the rasp in his voice almost overwhelming it, said quietly, "As soon as the sun sets, we should go. We will be difficult to recognize. We need that."

Beau held out her hand. A deal was a deal. And she'd _get_ a promise for Molly's sake.

Tirane blinked. "Beau, you don't need to make a deal with me. I mean, I'm a _warlock_. It's a bit of a—"

"So, where's her seawater vomit and weird sword?" Nott wondered in a stage whisper, mostly to Caleb.

Beau ignored her. She blocked Tirane's path, hand still out. "Doesn't fucking matter." Molly was probably laughing at her from the other side for being so fucking sentimental. That was how their shit worked. And she still wanted to hear him laugh again, even if it took some extra epic goddamn quest to pull it off. "We're not losing anyone else."

* * *

" _Sending: Riyaz, I'm heading into the Run. I didn't find the person-plant, and I'm sorry, but I found people. Gonna be back late. Love you!"_

 _"You're_ what?! _"_

* * *

Mitra turned out to be a hooded figure hanging out by the bar's nearby alleyway, unbothered by the corpse lying at the back of it or the one they were carrying. What they had heard of her hinted that she may have even been the reason behind the former. Still, Tirane ignored the body when she went to greet her. It didn't draw attention at all.

In fact, no one so much as gave their ragtag group a second glance. Tirane was the only one who could even think of risking walking around unrecognized, and so that was their only advantage.

It was a return to form, at least for Caleb. Hood up, Nott disguised as a halfling, and Beauregard's Cobalt Soul robes turned inside-out and hood pulled over her undercut. Keg, shrouded in Tirane's cloak. They'd thrown a blanket over Mollymauk's shroud to keep any interested eyes from noticing, but it seemed as though they were, for a given value of safe, secure enough in the moment.

All Mitra had said, even in the face of Tirane's questioning, was, "Khalil is meeting us at the Moonweaver's shrine. Come along."

And they had arrived. Khalil, it appeared, was late.

Mitra didn't speak to any of the Nein, instead turning all of that quiet focus toward the mess of offerings to the Moonweaver all over the place and started moving the pieces into some semblance of order. The shrine was empty of any stray worshippers, but the altar was well-decorated with flowers and purple candles that smelled strongly of lavender. Beauregard helped clear the ground where the ceremony would take place, more out of a burning desire to do something with her hands than any knowledge on her part.

Tirane lit the candles. Caleb couldn't muster the will.

Caleb sat with his feet near a sad little fire, tucked out of the wind. Hunched over a tin mug with herbal tea he could hardly taste, Frumpkin on his shoulder and Nott in his lap, he tried to remember how to breathe. _Ein, zwei, drei…_

His back was to Molly—to Mollymauk's body. Everyone had flinched when Mitra unwrapped him, checking the fatal wound and for whatever else was a part of the resurrection process. And whatever she had been looking for, she found, because then they started talking about practical concerns. Transport. Rituals.

Caleb knew he was a smart man, but this—

This was something a cleverer man could have avoided. A stronger one could have done something before one of their friends was lying dead in the snow. A better wizard could have gotten every slaver with Slow and prevented…everything, maybe. Certainly, a less _stubborn_ man could have seen the warnings and convinced the others not to attack a group that so clearly overpowered them, but the fire had gotten into him, too. And it burned them all, in the end.

Just another failure to added to the list. Another thing only powerful magic could even hope to fix, and it was always magic Caleb didn't have. Always.

And then Mitra upended a bag containing a massive diamond into her hand. She placed it carefully where Mollymauk's collarbones met, above the gaping wound Lorenzo's glaive had left. Caleb had to look away before the morbid comparisons sprang into his head.

"Now, we just wait for Khalil." Mitra sat back, staring out into the dark beyond the open-air shrine. "Tirane."

"Huh?" Tirane stirred, having been staring out into the dark as surely as Caleb looked into the fire for answers.

"Why did you ask for help now?" Mitra's hood shifted. "You could have asked for anything else. We don't tend to deal with strangers. You know that."

"Join the fucking club," Beauregard muttered, and Caleb found himself nodding along just slightly before he caught himself. She had curled up almost entirely, arms folded across her knees and her staff in a deathgrip. "I wanna know the answer to that, too."

Tirane shrank in on herself a little. "That's, well. Uh."

Beauregard's eyes narrowed in the dim firelight. "Hey. Cough it up."

"All right, fine!" Tirane didn't jump up, or shout. Or really do anything other than hunch over her knees as much as Caleb was. "It—I was afraid, but the people who did this were _slavers_. The Iron Shepherds, even! I couldn't _not_ help!"

Mitra's expression hardened. There was something there, if only Caleb could just muster enough _will_ to reach out and make her speak her mind for all to hear…

But it didn't happen. Instead, Mitra only said, "I see. You found the chains, didn't you?"

Tirane ducked her head. "Yeah. And I asked about them."

Mitra muttered something under her breath that sounded like, "Why does he even keep them?"

Instead of elaborating, though, she withdrew further into the shadows before crossing the length of the temple. The hollowed-out archway that they'd entered through, it seemed, was more interesting than any conversation with the Mighty Nein.

Caleb almost agreed, and he hadn't spoken in almost four hours.

Inside, his mind raced through the fog of grief. Oh, _verdammt_ , _another_ situation involving those blasted manacles. It was as though the Nein were secretly made of lodestones and had been dropped in some cosmic pit where manacles replaced iron filings. Had Mollymauk been alive—no, _able_ —to comment, even his best joke would have fallen flat.

Caleb barely had to look at Tirane's face to confirm what he'd already suspected. Yes, this society of kidnappers were likely the source of all the enchanted manacles they'd ever seen, starting with the manticore they had slain nearly a month ago. Even in the Harvest Close arena, there'd been more. The patterns were all the same. He'd seen them a dozen times since, and each occasion burned more now for the naivete in those memories.

There was a pattern no one had been willing to see.

"You got a history with them?" Beauregard asked, to keep the conversation going.

"No, not directly," Tirane said, after watching Mitra go. "My friend, though—"

Keg, without so much as casting a look in Tirane's direction, shoved a flask into her hands.

"Uh, thanks."

"Don't, it's empty," said Nott, just before guzzling booze from her own flask.

"By 'your friend'..." Beauregard began slowly—almost dangerously.

"A couple of years ago, Mitra and Khalil helped free Riyaz. They all almost died, but they snuck out of town anyway and got away." Tirane glanced down at the flask and shook it experimentally. "Riyaz is the druid I mentioned earlier. I—I might not be strong, or clever, but I've known them for ages. So, it's not really about you, I guess, but…"

Caleb had suspected not. But this was a little better than the worst parts of his imagination insisted.

"Tirane," Mitra said from the archway.

"Sorry, Mitra." Tirane rubbed the back of her neck. "Is Khalil here?"

And an entirely different voice said, "Did someone ask about me?"

The speaker was buried under Tirane's complaints about tardiness, at least for a few seconds. But one crushing hug apparently counted as payment enough, and he was allowed into the light. Caleb could see that his features were similar to Mitra's and, like her, he was darker than Beau was, but almost any other detail was too dimmed to determine. He did get a glimpse of armor and a scimitar, but that was all.

Khalil, it turned out, was not a cleric. Oh, he worshipped the Moonweaver, perhaps _approximately_ as much as Mollymauk h— _did_ —but he did not associate with true temples. That had only partly to do with his personality or the legality of worship.

"You're a _bard_ ," Nott said, but only after the greetings were all done and she was safely tucked against Caleb's side again. Her accusatory tone rattled up through Caleb's ribs when her hiss worked its way through her voice.

"Yep." Khalil sat down next to Mollymauk's body, pulling a lute from his back and plucking a few experimental notes. While he tuned the instrument, he hummed a little.

Caleb said softly, "I thought only clerics could raise the dead."

"That's what they want you to think. Really powerful paladins can, too. It's just rarer," Khalil replied, distracted. "Hell if you'd find any out here, though. Most of the clerics are sketchy, too."

"'Sketchy' also describes us fairly well," Mitra remarked under her breath.

"But at least Molly will be back!" Nott and optimism were no more on speaking terms than they had been before. It was almost painful to listen to. But she was _trying_ , which was more than they'd managed in a while.

Caleb did not mention the suspicion that crept up from the depths of his mind. While no one could bring themselves to voice it yet, Mollymauk _had_ once been dead long enough to convince others—including a cleric—that he was beyond saving. And the person who crawled out of his grave, per his own testimony, was not Nonagon or Lucien. Cree had lost a friend twice over the day the Tomb Takers buried their leader, even if she did not know it. If Mollymauk came back without his memories—if he could not be the person they knew—then _Caleb_ did not know what they could do.

Tirane's voice, for the second time, echoed in his head. _This is better than Reincarnation, at least. I'm sure you'll get your friend back the same shape he was before. Okay?_

A part of him wanted to take her at her word. The rest could not and did not, recognizing the intrusion and snapping immediately, _Get out of my head._ Now _._

She withdrew as though slapped, looking chastised, but the damage was done.

For a split second, Caleb tried to imagine how Mollymauk would react to being brought back into a body he wouldn't recognize in a mirror. Again. He'd told them so much about claiming this body after digging his way out of his own grave, though the truth needed to be pulled out of him like milk teeth, and to lose all of that… Well, Mollymauk would probably be happy to be alive again, but it wouldn't last. Having a beating heart would be a welcome change. The conflict would sink in afterward, seeping like water into rock, and start eating him away.

The Mighty Nein were in shambles without half their number, and Mollymauk's death could only—it was another nail in a coffin, and Caleb desperately did not want it to be the final straw before they _shattered_. He could leave, yes, but he'd told himself that the night before and just. Not managed it.

He was too attached.

Shaking himself a bit, Caleb watched the others to offer some kind of reassurance to Nott's declaration, but no one seemed to have one. Well, fine. "I have a practical question."

"What?" Mitra prompted flatly.

"This resurrection magic. I know it requires a diamond, much like Revivify. I know that the spell must be used inside of time constraints," Caleb began, after taking a sip from his mug again. Its warmth didn't help, but the taste of strong herbs at least broke through the fog in his head. "But it is necromancy of some kind, _ja_? No legal temple in the Empire will help us. We are lucky this time. Barely."

"Like any of us give a flying fuck about 'legal' right now," Beauregard growled, her hands tightening on her staff. "Half our party's heretical anyway."

"But in the future…"

"Making something illegal doesn't make it not exist," Tirane said, still shamed enough not to look at him.

 _Gut._ She should be.

"And in the future, we'll have Jester, Fjord, and Yasha back," Beauregard added. It did not take someone who knew her as well as Caleb did to see through her bravado. No one else commented on that, exactly.

"Well said." Khalil twisted the last little peg on his lute, then looked up. "Is there anything you would like to add to this ritual?"

Caleb started. " _Was_?"

"In resurrections, it's best to have people trying to help. I mean, I don't know him. He might not listen to me alone." Khalil's fingers strummed the strings gently, just to catch the sound. "You're his friends, right? Then you can help." As he started to pluck out a tune, he said, "You can offer a speech, an object, whatever. What do you think will call him back?"

Beauregard responded first. Ever-brash Beauregard, whose eyes were already welling up. "I've got something."

* * *

 _I'm sorry I didn't explain before, Mitra. Word limits suck. Um, did you want to know what happened here?_

 _It would be helpful. You just threw my brother and me into this situation. He has to sing someone back to life, and you're entangled with a group who's angered one of the few consistent powers in the Run, not to mention traveling with an ex-member. What were you_ thinking _, Tirane?_

 _I couldn't just_ not _help._

 _You could have walked away. You damn well know better than this._

 _I couldn't!_

 _Why? Because they remind you of us? They are not us. They are half a gang of bedraggled thugs who picked a fight they couldn't win against people we happen to hate. Your sympathy is—_

 _Khalil agrees with me! He knows how important it is to_ try _to do good even if it fucking sucks. Why else is he even here? Why are_ you _here? Both of you could have teleported to Tal'Dorei or something and never had to come back to the Run, ever._

 _…And in "doing good" you may have just gotten yourself into something deeper than you can survive. Besides, you know nothing of these people._ Anyone _can get on the bad side of unrepentant murderers._

 _They were trying to get their friends back. You might not care why they got into trouble like that, but... That's… That's not how I feel about it._

 _And will that soft heart save you from_ dying _?_

 _No. But it doesn't have to. I just want to save someone else. If I can just save one person… It feels like I'm at least doing_ something _._

 _And did you ever think that, perhaps, the rest of us care rather more about_ you _than we do about people we don't know?_

 _Mitra…_

 _I'll listen. I don't like it, but I'll listen. I promise_ nothing _more than that._

 _Well, they're called the Mighty Nein…_

* * *

 _The music reached out from nowhere and everywhere, carrying voices with it. Between the notes, drowning them out, Molly heard his friends._

 _Beau's shouting, tone like broken glass in her heart but_ _alive, so_ alive: "—can't get the last word like this, you asshole. W-We still need you back here, with us. Our family doesn't leave anyone behind, and that includes you!"

 _Caleb's soft murmur, hesitant and oh so very guilty:_ "…Mister Mollymauk, I-I have spent my life wishing to undo mistakes. Terrible mistakes, which you have never asked about. It is like… We are opposites, you and I, and—and we most definitely need you. Our group is not complete without you."

 _Nott's high rasp, watery with snot and tears:_ "Molly, I know we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. That's fine. That's how we are, right? But—back in Hupperdook, you were the first person to ever dance with me. I—please, come back."

 _"Ah, there we go," said the Champion of the Raven Queen. His dark wings curled around and overhead, shading Molly's head from the brilliant light of this in-between place. The half-elf's smile was soft, understanding. "You're being called, Mollymauk Tealeaf. Do you want to answer? It's up to you."_

 _"You know, if you'd asked me that before," Molly said softly, watching the colored strands of his self unravel into rainbow lights streaming up into the too-bright sky, "I might've said I'd done enough. As long as Beau got away all right, and she did. Can't top that."_

 _"And your answer now?"_

 _"It's like she said, isn't it? No one gets left behind." Molly turn to face his guide fully, then added as the world began to fade to white, "Thank you, Vax. For listening."_

 _"Or helping you listen, perhaps." Vax stepped aside with a bow. "Until next time, try to be a little less like me. A little more careful, maybe?"_

 _"No promises," Molly replied with a laugh, and everything vanished._

His first breath ached, deep in his chest and through his back. He coughed, which hurt worse, and there was something holding him down, _pressing—not again, not again, can't wake up_ empty _again—!_

His eyes snapped open, and the scream on his tongue withered immediately. He _knew_ the eyes staring down at him, all three pairs, even if the names were slower to appear. Knew the faces, too, when he thought about it. It was enough to calm his stuttering heart a little, to stop the litany of confusion and panic.

Then there was shouting.

"Molly!" cried Nott, cat-yellow eyes huge in the dark. She was shorter than him, he remembered in a distant sort of way, so why was she overhead?

 _"Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends."_

That was his name. His _name_.

He'd almost forgotten again.

Caleb spoke next, his voice nearly meshing with Nott's as his bandaged hands grabbed for Molly's. "Mollymauk, you are—"

And Beau, pushier as always, crushed him into a hug that yanked him halfway upright, making his head spin. While he buried his face against her shoulder and clung weakly to her robe, trying to keep balance, she half-sobbed against his. "Never fucking do that again, you asshole!"

Molly turned his head slowly, careful not to poke her with the ends of his horns. Beau, of course, pulled back far enough that it didn't matter, but the thought probably still counted. Her scowl hadn't changed, underneath the tears, but she held him out at arm's length and said, "Come on, do your thing. No 'unpleasant one?' No 'fuck you, Beau?'"

 _"Come on, unpleasant one."_

 _"Lead the way, obnoxious one."_

If it'd make her feel better, Molly could give it a shot. But the words wouldn't form, his silver tongue turned to lead, and he just had to shake his head helplessly.

"Oh, fuck." Beau's expression crumpled a little. She sent desperate glances to Caleb and Nott before asking, "You remember us, right?"

Molly nodded, then felt himself start to tilt sideways as his vision went dark around the edges. Quite without intending, he was halfway to the ground again before Beau and Caleb caught him. Already, his eyes were sliding shut.

He was so tired.

Nott squeaked, "Is this normal?" Her little clawed fingertips pressed against his pulse point, practically trembling with nervous energy. It felt strangely familiar. "Hey, don't fall asleep!"

 _"What did we say about grumpy people?_ "

"Dying takes a lot out of you." A stranger's voice. Accent, check, but younger than Caleb's and far faster. "Physician's orders: Just eat and sleep for the next couple days. He's not going to be able to do much else."

Beau moved, leaving Molly probably lying in Caleb's lap, right? So much for being able to get out of here. Wherever "here" was. Caleb had the same noodle arms Molly did, just for different reasons. At least, he thought so.

 _"I don't have a wizard. Well, I have one wizard."_

"Hey, you said you knew a place? Someplace they can't find us." Beau still sounded awful. Was that over him? How strange…

Another new voice. "Yeah, I do. Hey, do you two want to—"

"Like hell we're staying in town after _that_. People probably heard us." The first stranger, again. A murmur. "Gotta cover our tracks. Prestidigitation. Prestidigitation. Healing Word. Aaaaand _Seeming_!"

When Molly was hauled upright, finally, he sagged heavily between Beau and a stranger. Caleb wasn't that short, and Nott couldn't hope to be that tall. Keg either. When he opened his eyes, though, he hardly recognized anything. Those were...not the tops of his boots, and when he glanced at where he thought Beau had to be.

Huh. He remembered being purple, not brown. And he _felt_ his coat, even if he couldn't see it.

"And we're out. Pretend he's just some drunk friend." Someone dropped the shroud—the tapestry?—over his head. Gruff, familiar. Smelled like cigar smoke. Keg.

 _"That's how I know you can afford us!"_

"And if someone tries to mug us?" Beau demanded, while Molly's head rested somewhere near enough for her gauge to poke his face. The half-elf on his right was definitely Beau. Even if she didn't look like her.

"Then they're dead. Right, Mitra?"

"Without question."

After the fact, Molly wasn't sure when he passed out. It felt more like the inevitable, gently insistent pull into sleep, and he didn't fight as it dragged him down.

What he was surprised by, later, was that he woke up again.

The first thing he noticed, this time, was that he felt slightly less like he'd been hit by a cart and trampled for good measure. His chest and ribs ached like the Hells, his arms were still asleep, and exhaustion settled right into his bones, but it was still better than before. He couldn't remember "before" that well, but it had to have been awful. Second, there was quite a lot weighing him down.

First on the docket was a pile of furs, on top of what felt like blankets and not his coat. As Molly turned his head, the clink of his horn jewelry was entirely absent, but that was a background concern to the problem that _Beau_ was apparently leaning on his shoulder in the dawn's gray light, and had been for long enough that he couldn't feel his fingers and she was drooling. A quick glance to the other side revealed Nott with her back to him and Caleb just past her, with Frumpkin the owl perched atop them both. Keg was sitting by a fire, fast asleep with a mug dangling off her hand. There were a couple more people around, but they weren't the ones Molly cared about.

 _One, two, three, four._ Not enough of them, not nearly, but at least the friends who'd fought alongside him in that last battle were all still here. Molly let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he'd been holding onto. He hadn't counted wrong last night. They were all still here.

 _Worth it._

Beau, of course, stirred. She caught sight of his open eyes before he could decide to play dead or not. She didn't say anything at first, glancing toward Nott and Caleb with a pinched expression. Then, slowly, she shifted on the makeshift mattress so Molly could move his left arm again. If he wanted to. Gods, he was still so tired.

"Hey," Beau whispered, once she was sitting cross-legged next to him. After she wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, she asked, "Can you talk?"

And Molly just managed to croak, "A… A little."

"Good." Beau paused uncomfortably, then added with her usual bluster, "If you ever do that again, I'll break your fucking nose, asshole. Don't die on us again."

 _Not planning on it,_ Molly thought. Instead of trying to talk, he shifted his arm as far as he could out of Beau's way.

She didn't accept the invitation at first. Beau made a show of glancing out the window to this…hut, stretching more for effect than practical purposes, and looking anywhere but Molly. Then, "Fuck it. It's too early for this shit."

She made a point of lying down again only after she'd moved his limp arm over his chest and stolen half the furs. Even then, she had her back to him just like Nott and Caleb did.

They were here.

They were safe.

They'd find the others soon. Come hell or high water, _no one got left behind_.

Molly closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 _And you ask me what I want this year_  
 _And I try to make this kind and clear_  
 _Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days_  
 _Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings_  
 _And designer love and empty things_  
 _Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days_

 _\- "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls_

 **(1/2)**


	2. And Back

**AN:** And the unexpected-until-written follow-up chapter where everyone sorts shit out.

I just needed to get this out after seeing the last episode and the Talks Machina from SDCC. These people are breaking my heart in their main continuity.

(This extension is brought to you by "Let's Just Live" from RWBY, by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams.)

* * *

"Hey," Beau said, spotting Tirane sitting on the ground outside the weird little moss-hut.

The new redhead looked up as she approached, scooting over to give Beau a little space in the weak winter sunlight. Beau sat down, crossing her legs in a meditative pose. "So."

"So," Tirane mimicked, though more hesitantly.

"I didn't thank you earlier." Beau crossed her arms. "So, thanks. For helping us. Not a lot of people do that without us beating the shit out of them first."

"Oh, it's all right." Tirane looked down at her lap, creepy spellbook open across her knees. When she looked up, she was smiling faintly. "Between you yelling and arguing with Mitra, honestly, I just feel more determined than ever that I did the right thing. Sometimes, that's how it is."

"Speaking of," Beau said after a second, "you willing to do a couple more 'right things' before we hit the Run?"

Tirane blinked. "You're still going there."

"No one gets left behind," Beau told her in a firm tone. "And…" She eyed Tirane's reaction carefully, then went on, "Keg told us how the Shepherds operate once they get back to Shadycreek Run. They'll probably make it there ahead of us, since, y'know." She waved a hand vaguely.

Beau still wasn't sure how, exactly, Tirane's weird friends had managed to change the travel times so drastically between here and there, but they hadn't taken any route Keg remembered and, honestly, not even Caleb could figure out what the fuck happened there. Something screwy had been going on, and Beau had been too distracted hauling a blacked-out Molly along by his arms to really pay attention.

"Okay," said Tirane, "I get what you're saying, but…"

Beau's shriveled heart sank a bit. "You don't think you could talk them into it again."

"No, I could. Me and Khalil are sort of like ringleaders, so if he agrees, we're in." Tirane peered around at the clearing, which was empty. Not even the weirdass druid who owned it was in sight. "It's just… Khalil and Mitra can't show their real faces in town, and Riyaz won't want to go at all. And we're actually down two party members right now."

Beau thought that over, deciding which part to address first. "So, we didn't see their real faces earlier."

"Nope. Khalil chose to up-cast Seeming to get us out of town."

"What _are_ their real faces, then?" Beau asked. Honestly, it wasn't as though she was all that suspicious of Tirane's motives. The half-elf was almost painfully sincere about her desire to help, which frankly reminded Beau just enough of Jester and Molly, with the edges filed off, to make her heart hurt a little. Coughing to clear her throat, Beau added, "I mean, not that it matters that much. You were pretending to be a human last night, what with the ears and all, and I guess that might be a thing around here?"

"Eh, call it solidarity." A branch snapped directly behind them, and though Tirane didn't flinch, Beau did turn to face the new arrival before he sat down a little to the front and left.

What had been brown skin had changed to a deeper copper, and two sweeping, curved gray horns spouted from just behind Khalil's hairline. Beau could see that his facial structure was completely the same, as was the indecisive little soul patch, but apparently Khalil had been a tiefling under two layers of disguises the entire time. His eyes were the same bright blue-green, though this time the color went from edge to edge instead of stopping at irises.

"That's a lie," added a second voice and, sure enough, Mitra also emerged from the forest. She had her brother's coloration and the same horns, but her eyes were solid gold instead. "You agreed before you even heard what they were like."

"True. Tiefling solidarity isn't really a thing," her twin agreed instantly. "But nonhuman solidarity might be!"

The twins sat down across from Beau and Tirane, with Khalil grinning and Mitra leaning against his back to face out across the clearing. That was about par for the course for the two of them, given that Beau had seen last night.

"Do you have questions?"

"Plenty, but not about," Beau gestured vaguely at her own head, and Khalil's grin widened. Beau's eyes narrowed, so Khalil made a point of miming buttoning his lip before she went on, "Seriously, though. Some of this is just like, practical shit."

"Shoot," Khalil prompted, and Beau glared at him again.

Still, that was fair. And it wasn't like Molly was the one bugging her now. "Half the reason we headed toward this shithole town in the first place was because we've got a job with a shady motherfucker who pays really well. Tirane tell you that?"

Khalil and Tirane exchanged looks, then he shrugged. "Sure."

"Right. Whatever." Beau scratched at her undercut, which was unfortunately starting to get real shaggy after the last week or so. "So, even before all this shit went down, we were already gonna be against the Iron Shepherds because they work for the crime family we _don't_. Practically guaranteed. Don't see a reason to change that."

Khalil was sizing her up, now, suddenly tense. "Which family were you working for, again?"

"Somebody named Ophelia Mardun. I think." When Khalil relaxed again, Beau added, "Look, I get it if you don't fucking care if the entire town explodes. Honestly, that's where I am right now. But chances are she's just gonna ask us to kill the fuck out of Lorenzo, which was something already on the list."

"You worried about that?"

" _Fuck yes I'm worried_ ," Beau snapped. "I dunno if you noticed, but one of us literally died when we fucked up back there and there wasn't anything _we_ could do about it. And like, no offense, but Caleb was right when he said there's no way in hell we're getting that lucky again with—" Beau bit off the end of her sentence to just jab a finger at Khalil to encompass her entire point, and he was nodding along anyway. "Yeah. You see the problem."

"There's also that thing with Molly," Tirane piped up as she stuck her wand in her hair. It stayed, probably because her curls were so thick. "I mean, yes, Khalil brought him back, but _nobody_ can fight a day after being brought back with Raise Dead."

"Hey, I managed," Khalil protested.

"You," Mitra interrupted in a deadly quiet voice, "nearly managed to _repeat_ your ignoble death the next day."

"But I didn't, and that's the important part!"

Beau had a hand over her eyes to massage her temples, then remembered that the gesture was almost pure _Molly_ and forced her hand back down. "Okay, okay, fine. Expert advice heeded or whatever. But look, we don't have _time_ to wait for Molly to figure out left and right again. We already lost a day and our friends could—" Beau's voice hitched for an instant. "I'm not going to let my friends get _tortured_ by anybody if there's a chance in hell I can stop it."

Big words, really. Empty, too, or hadn't Lorenzo killed Molly right in front of her? Molly'd been unconscious before the deathblow, for what it mattered, but…

"Well, I'm in," said Tirane, exactly like Beau had expected. She shifted in place and offered Beau her hand.

"Tira—" Mitra began warningly.

Khalil had his hand over Tirane's before his twin could even complete the word. "Me, too."

" _Khalil_ ," Mitra hissed with her fangs bared. Her tail lashed in agitation.

"We can call the other two in," Khalil said, as though his twin hadn't just barely backed down from verbally ripping his head off. "And Riyaz can tree-teleport us back into town if we need it."

"There are some…sorta safe places," Keg put in, clanking over in her full plate armor. As she sat down, Tirane handed her a flash of some kind that sloshed encouragingly. Keg accepted, though it probably didn't contain alcohol. "There are some places in the Run that the Iron Shepherds don't go. Most of them are owned by the Marduns. If you guys really are working for them, you can kinda, uh, play the two sides a bit. Or at least take advantage of the Marduns' hatred of everything the Jagentoths stand for."

Beau nodded and started stretching her fingers. Sooner or later, it'd be time to break Lorenzo's face again. And this time, they'd _win_. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan."

Khalil smiled, pointedly not showing his teeth. "Half a plan."

"Ten percent, maximum," Mitra corrected.

They ended up having what amounted to more field snacks than anything when it came to breakfast. Plus porridge. According to Tirane, Riyaz had left to go hunt something and there would be a meat shortage until then. Given that Beau had seen the weirdly dusty druid a total of twice, during neither encounter actually _talking_ to him, she decided not to express an opinion on that. Fjord's lessons had stuck in some ways, at least. Besides, the delay gave them a little time to get Caleb and Nott up again, though Molly still snoozed his way through the late morning.

Mitra got up abruptly about an hour before noon, picking up a bundle of hunting equipment as she headed for the forest. Since no one else moved to help her, Beau stayed where she was and unwrapped a bundle of trail rations to share with her party. Molly probably wouldn't be up to appreciating all the money he'd blown on expensive jerky or whatever else was in these packages, but he could complain later. As it was, the rest of them got bacon.

"Okay, so we've got…" Khalil tilted his horned head and counted quickly under his breath. "Four of you, plus Molly, and four of us if we don't get the others…"

"Molly's not going anywhere." Beau grimaced, then took a long swig from her water flask to get the taste of that thought out of her mouth. It didn't help. Alcohol might've, but Nott didn't look like she wanted to share. "He'll pitch a fit, but he'll get over it."

Caleb gave her a skeptical look. So did Nott.

"I do not think Mollymauk will, er, 'pitch a fit,' to use your words." Caleb's gaze didn't lock on Beau's for long, but it never did. Not that she could really blame him. "But nor do I think he will stay. Keg would need to sit on him to keep him from following us to the Run, and I do not think Keg wants to do that, either."

"You've got that right." Keg looked down at her bowl of porridge, then shoved the spoon in her mouth. Not wanting to talk, probably.

They probably could have gone on like that for a while. Beau was almost feeling back to normal regarding complaining about Molly, aside from the occasional punch to the heart when her memory decided to be an asshole. There was bacon, nobody was dying, and Nott had pocketed at least four weird trinkets someone would miss after they were long gone. The voices were wrong, but the laid-back atmosphere could have been familiar enough to be almost…nice. Sort of.

Then Mitra came back from her expedition, trailing Riyaz—gray-skinned, black hair shot through with white, looked like he had rocks growing out of his face—and a carcass over… Wait, where had they gotten another horse? There wasn't a saddle, and none of the horses Beau could remember were middleish-brown.

Riyaz was already pulling the field-dressed deer off the horse's back and dragging it toward their group by the time Mitra broke off and headed back through the briar fence. The horse, however, continued forward without a lead, bridle, saddle, or anything else and walked directly up to their group without hesitation.

Beau got to her feet, standing directly between Caleb and the approaching what-the-fuck. She didn't unsling her staff from her back. But she did cross her arms and wait patiently, while she heard Nott duck directly behind her.

"So," Beau began, while the horse's big eyes did their best to focus on her, "what's your deal?"

And as soon as she asked the question, the animal's entire body started to ripple. Blurred a bit by weird magic, the horse melted and flowed into a shape that was two heads taller than Beau. Before she could pull back, details snapped into place—huge, brown, but _person-shaped_ —to stop her. She found herself looking up at a seven-foot firbolg who had possibly the kindest face of anyone Beau had ever seen. Powerfully built, yes, and less off-kilter than Pumat Sol, but somehow _sweet_.

"Hello," said the firbolg as she bowed her head, clasping her hands in front of her stomach. Beau found herself already bowing back before she realized it. "I think you are who I have been looking for."

Something clicked in Beau's head. They'd only met a few firbolgs who were way the hell out here, and _they'd_ mentioned someone missing. "Are you—you're Nila, aren't you?"

"Yes." Nila extended her huge brown hand, palm-up. "I saw what happened before, and I think I have abilities that may help you when you fight those bad people again."

Well, what the hell. The last twenty-four hours had just been a _parade_ of helpful people, hadn't they?

But Molly wasn't dead. They were being fed. Apparently, the woods were filled with druids who were a lot less evil than the one the Nein had killed. Beau knew better than to look a literal gift horse in the mouth, at least with this kind of trend.

"Nice to meet you, Nila," Beau managed, taking Nila's hand.

"It is nice to meet you, too."

* * *

"What? No. Of course I'm going." Mollymauk was, after about twelve hours of lying in the fur-pile of a bed, already talking again. That he had to be helped with so much as eating, moving, or putting his coat on did not seem to deter him. "You're not leaving me behind."

"You're just gonna slow us down," Beauregard snapped, sitting on the edge of the bed and lacing her boots.

"You did just die, Mollymauk," Nott added, though she flinched a little when Mollymauk's red gaze landed on her in indignation. "There's no getting around that!"

"I'll be _fine_ ," Mollymauk insisted. "I've been dead before. I think. I made it then, I can do this now."

"Last time, you met up with the circus," Beauregard said. "This time, we're going into a town that… How'd you say it before, Keg?"

"Everyone's favorite pastime is _stabbing people_ ," Keg repeated, with a bit more emphasis this time.

"That," Beauregard concluded, crossing her arms. "Besides, Caleb could knock you over right now. That's not where you wanna be."

"Please leave me out of this," Caleb muttered. He'd been copying rituals out of Tirane's spellbook for the better part of two hours, for all the good some of them would do. They were not all wizard spells, but Tirane did not seem to need to care about those subtle differences. Perhaps she did not have to.

"Fuck you, Beau. I'm not going to sit here while you go off and get killed."

"Well, since you're the one who _actually did that_ , fuck you, too!"

Khalil nudged his twin with his elbow. "Is that what we sound like?"

"No, that is what Oceanus and _everybody else_ sounds like," Mitra muttered, running a hand through her black hair. She did not sound surprised at the idea that a pack of assholes such as the Mighty Nein would devolve into bickering. Perhaps annoyed, but by no means surprised.

Khalil grinned. "You're just saying that because he figured out how much you hate cold hands."

"And who told him that, I wonder?"

"Tirane," Riyaz said, without looking up from something he was whittling down into wood scrap.

"Traitor!"

"I do not understand the root of his argument," Nila said, still listening placidly to the chaos. Her low, warm voice cut through the higher-pitched arguing like a saw. "We are two days from the bad place. I cannot do this alone, yes, but I believe we all have abilities that make this possible. I do not see why we must sit and talk when we can be working."

"The lady has a point," Khalil said, while his twin stalked off in slow pursuit of the fleeing Tirane. His tail lashed visibly as he turned to the token genasi of their group. "I mean, Riyaz, can't you Wind Walk us to Shadycreek Run? We'd be going like ten times as fast as any caravan."

"Yes," Riyaz replied, still apparently intent on his work. "Up to eleven people, including me, can go. Though your recovery may be slowed."

"These abilities seem very like mine," Nila said to Riyaz, who leaned back when she turned her attention to him. "Are you a druid as well?"

He seemed a little hesitant to say, "Yes."

"That is good. We will move faster."

"But with two days to burn—" Molly's eyes lit up. Not literally.

"You'd just about be able to fight an imp. With one wing. And no claws," Beau said.

"Shut _up_ , Beau."

"Is that what we have decided, then?" Caleb interrupted, before the exciting sequel to their group's second-oldest argument could get off the ground. Beauregard and Mollymauk's attention whipped to him, which he dealt with by staring down at the tome in his lap. "We will go to this town again. We will free our friends." Caleb felt his brows draw together. "And we will kill Lorenzo."

Caleb still did not know how a town two days away had been reached and its defenses bypassed in a handful of hours so the ritual could be done, but there were some mysteries it seemed the world did not want him to have answers to. Perhaps there was a god to thank for not making their road as long as could be, but Caleb did not know which to speak to or if it would be right to even think of calling on the Traveler without Jester to ask questions.

"As a statement of intent, it's not bad," Khalil said. He clapped his hands together. "Well! In that case, does anyone particularly want to look like anyone else once we get there? Seeming lasts for eight hours, if we need it to."

"I do not think the Iron Shepherds will have the time to warn the…" Caleb trailed off. "Does this town have a militia? I did not see one."

"Just the Taskers," said Keg. "Like, if there's a fight that breaks out and it gets bad enough that it looks like the Run's gonna burn down? They step in and beat down _everyone_ until it's over." Keg scratched at her would-be beard. "It wasn't exactly my crowd."

"Yes, we know this." Caleb added, to the rest of the group, "I do not think we will be recognized."

"Well, that's good for you," Khalil replied. " _Un_ fortunately, I think the Taskers may remember the last time we ventured into the Run as ourselves."

"How long ago was it?" Keg asked.

"Uh, four years? Ish?"

"Yeah, no, I don't think the Taskers remember shit." Keg shrugged, then pulled a cigarette out of apparently nowhere. "Tieflings are more obvious than humans, but they don't do woodcuts and wanted posters. And a bunch of them die all the damn time anyway."

Nott, after taking a swig from her flash and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, "More than the Shepherds do?"

"They didn't used to hire extra hands," Keg replied. This statement did not fill Caleb with confidence when paired with Keg's other informative declarations.

"I would recommend a disguise nonetheless," Caleb said, as though Keg had not said anything.

Keg looked over at him for the contradiction, then sank further into her seat. Perhaps it had not been the subtlest of corrections, but he had to make it. Someone had to be cruel when necessary, though he would apologize later for it. Keg had made the correct call in the battle. Before her intervention, Caleb had already been thinking of ways to grab Nott and run. If he could.

"I do not have much experience with these things," Nila said after a slight break in the conversation. "But I think we should leave as soon as we can." Her dark eyes seemed to dim still further. "I would like to see my son and my partner as soon as possible. There is no reason to wait."

When Caleb scanned the room, everyone's faces were rather serious. There were variations—like Mollymauk, who had a stubborn set to his jaw to match Beauregard's—but the group consensus pointed one way.

"The ayes have it," Caleb said softly. "We leave in an hour."

This seemed to draw general…if not _approval_ , then at least compliance while Mitra and Tirane were occupied. Before Caleb had even finished his suggestion, Beauregard was already off the bed and piling her possessions into her pack. The other party was kind enough to disperse to leave them to it. Nott had pilfered items that made her personal pack bulge, but not enough to request access to the extradimensional haversack. Caleb followed suit with both his things and Mollymauk's, because his friend's prior attempts to stand and wander about under his own power were not the sort of experiences that needed to be repeated.

"We'll have to leave the horses, won't we?" Nott wondered aloud. She bounded across the bed and stuck her head out the cottage door. "Hey, can we bring the horses?"

"When we're gonna use Wind Walk? Hell no!" Khalil's voice rang out in reply. "They spend too much time wondering where their legs went!"

"That's not good," Beauregard muttered. Louder, she called, "Hey, jackass, what'll we do with them then?"

"Leave them? Riyaz keeps the walking trees around for more than their looks!"

Beauregard blinked. "Does he even know how that sounds?"

"I wouldn't bet against it," said Mollymauk, before literally tumbling out of the bed with an, "Ow!"

Beauregard's attention was immediately and irrevocably diverted. "Quit doing that! Or at least let someone carry you."

And that, it seemed, remained the core of their relationship. But perhaps while the surface stayed the same, Beauregard and Mollymauk had grown past the petty arguments. He did not know. He did not think _they_ knew, and perhaps that was the mystery that could be solved.

Caleb closed his spellbook once the ink was dry, and they were off.

* * *

Getting to Shadycreek Run's outermost checkpoint took less than an hour. Turning into clouds meant that, even with Molly slowing them down, they were covering more ground in that time than would have been even halfway possible otherwise. Before they hit the proper toll station, Keg stopped them all and the stealthy approach won out over all other options with hardly any discussion. Another Seeming got them a fresh batch of disguises, turning everyone but Tirane—whose appearance aside from her hair was as nondescript as ever—into a mishmash of races, armaments, and ages that did not at all match their true selves.

"I can make disguises on my own, you know," Nott rasped, even as she clambered up onto a horse-shaped Nila to keep Mollymauk from falling off. Given that Mollymauk outweighed her about three times over, it was probably for the best that Beauregard kept her hand clamped around his belt loop.

"You can save your spells, then," Khalil muttered as they approached. His Marquet-born accent sounded strange coming from the image of a heavily-armored blue dragonborn. "Keg, you want the lead?"

Keg nodded, looking like a dark-haired dwarf with a full beard in full plate, and started forward to the guard post with as little hesitation and as much attitude as expected of a Run native.

Mitra eyed the road ahead and reached down to fiddle with her money purse. Standard Crownsguard bribes were easily dealt with. The Run followed its own rules, but the toll was hardly more arduous when their cursory inspection would amount to nothing. As long as there was an opportunity to strip the Iron Shepherds of all valuables later on, there was no harm to supplementing the Mighty Nein's nonexistent cash flow.

Mollymauk beat her to it. "Keg, if you need gold—"

"I fucking got it." Keg said, before stomping off. "Don't worry."

Mitra watched the dwarf's retreating back, thought quickly, then stalked after her. She had no intention of letting their first encounter on the road end in a failure.

The gate into Shadycreek Run was even less impressive than Mitra remembered from her first encounter with it. While the long defensive pikes still had sun-bleached skulls lined up along their ranks, daylight defanged the old horrors. The guards were from one of the local families—likely not an allied one worth speaking of—and only existed to try and keep the rabble in check. The gate owed its existence more to a show than any force behind it.

"How much is it gonna be?" Keg asked, as the rough-looking guards surveyed the group.

They saw a dwarf, two strange humans, a gnome, two dragonborn, and two half-elves. Mitra felt their eyes slide over her false blue scales without enough interest to notice the illusion, as though the appearance of such a large group warranted no concern. Oh, the half-orc probably could have ruined everything by reaching out and touching either Khalil or Mitra's disguises, but that was not her purpose. She was merely counting heads for potential chopping.

"Two gold each," said the gate guard in an uncaring tone.

But, despite Mitra's rampant cynicism, Keg performed well. The toll was paid with a pittance in gold, and the guard let them pass, letting their ragtag mob of a group through the gate into the sovereign region of Shadycreek Run.

The ravine spread out in front of them as they trudged onward, revealing a vast valley blanketed not with healthy green conifers, but with a purplish-gray expanse that set Mitra's ranger intuition on edge. Every time she ventured into this place, the woods struck her anew as deeply wrong. It seemed to have an effect on the rest of them as well. After the strategy cram session just before the gate, general chatter from their group didn't rise above hushed whispers, primarily Nott or Molly speaking to the others from just high enough to be audible. Had Molly attempted to lean over, he would tip off of Nila's back, so some things could not be helped.

As they continued, the typical sprawl of the Run came into view. The snow-capped buildings were mostly squat or ramshackle, spread out and into the treeline in cases where the builders were a hair too optimistic. Hovels lined muddy streets and the eponymous creek wove them around and into the dead forest, for better or for worse.

Mitra suppressed the immediate, reflexive flash of hatred in her gut and turned her attention back to her traveling companions.

"Is there any place where we can lay up?" Caleb asked Keg as they went.

Keg made a contemplative noise, then held up a hand. "There's two places I would recommend." she sighed. "There's this place called the Plaza Emporium. This can-be-pleasant, occasionally murderous dragonborn runs that. She's not affiliated with any of the families directly, so she's a bit more neutral. We might be able…"

"Does she murder everybody, or…?"

"Only people that piss her off. So," she added, looking pointedly at Nott, "you'd have to be on your best behavior." Keg glanced down for a second, then said, "And the Landlocked Lady is a, uh, brothel—might wanna cover Nila's eyes—and it's run by the Marduns. Who happen to be—"

"That's who we're looking for," Nott interrupted quietly.

"—And they happen to be the family against the ones who hired the Iron Shepherds."

"Then that sounds like where we should go." Nott twisted in the saddle to look down at Keg. "Because the Iron Sheps won't go there to poke around and find us."

"Not that they'd know to look," Molly reminded her, holding up a hand as an example. With his lavender skin concealed under indecisive half-elf brown and wearing no bright colors to speak of, he was likely as nondescript as he had ever been in his entire life.

"Yeah, well," Keg trailed off uncomfortably for a second. "You got killed the last time we ran into them, so…"

Molly grimaced. "Is everyone going to bring that up forever?"

"Yes," said Nott and Beau, to his obvious annoyance.

"Anyway!" Keg coughed. "The proprietor's kind of a skeezeball, and not really the most trustworthy guy, but he is owned by the Marduns. Khalil, Mitra, anything to add?"

"No, you've covered everything. Neither of us were much into the family feud thing," Khalil answered for her, which saved Mitra a possible lie. "We tend to skulk around, not hole up somewhere obviously one thing or another."

"And we really need to get everybody settled safe somewhere," Tirane added, scratching at horse-Riyaz's mane with one hand. "Sounds about as safe as we're gonna get around here."

"Then I vote for the Landlocked Lady." Per Nott's prompt, away they went.

Mitra did not make a habit of observing towns except for threats, but once again the Run outdid her expectations regarding squalor and abject misery. Beggars would have lined the streets in a kinder-but-still-poor town, but this crooked place generated more corpses than people begging for alms. Mitra didn't regret creating a few of them, over the years, but some things were more palatable in the dark than in the gray light of morning. Dirty snow and mud dominated what despair didn't, and Mitra jerked her head to keep her eyes forward after only a few minutes while other ragtag bands did their best to stare them down.

There was another minor advantage to traveling as an obvious group, however—while any one them would have been a tempting target for a desperate thug, a large group that bristled with weapons and implied homicidal intent could afford to ignore all but another group of the same size. And while their two druids were pretending to be pack animals, their band did consist of seven obvious members, five of whom carried illusory armaments on false forms.

They were going to need to _not_ use these shapes once their base of operations were established. No traces left behind.

They passed the Tasker tower on the way to the Landlocked Lady and, though Mitra did hear Keg begin to explain the relative usefulness of the bedraggled would-be peacekeepers with examples to draw from, she had no commentary.

"Look, it's a place to regroup," Keg was explaining, once Mitra started paying attention again after watching a man stabbed in a different alleyway. "And it's a brothel, so they're not in the habit of spilling everyone's secrets."

"Like the fact that none of us look like what the gatekeepers think we do?" Khalil's smile, as a blue dragonborn, showed at least four times too many teeth to appear friendly.

"Like that, yeah." Keg eyed the top of her illusory gauntlets. "Speaking of, let's get in there and sort shit out. We've got a lot of work to do, and the Iron Shepherds aren't even here yet."

"And by 'work,'" Mitra said before anyone could get too far ahead of themselves, her blunt nails digging briefly into Mollymauk's leg as a warning, " _You_ are exempt. You will not waste my brother's spell in any way. That includes brothel services."

"You just suck the fun out of everything, don't you?" Mollymauk replied, but didn't protest further as, between Nott, Beau, and Mitra, they dragged him off Nila's back and onto his own wobbly legs. It didn't last. "Hang on, I've—well, I don't have this, thank you, but—" Beauregard and Tirane caught him, again.

"I'll get the rooms," Beauregard said, and strode ahead into the Landlocked Lady, dragging Tirane (who was being the other literal crutch) and Mollymauk along for the ride. While the others could sort out who was going to be a horse today, or tomorrow, Mitra followed along in their wake.

There was some argument, in the end. While Mitra did not care if she shared a room with her twin, Riyaz, Tirane, or any combination thereof, they would still need to pay for the supposed occupants of the brothel's beds whether they used them or just had Riyaz turn into a brown bear for six hours to use him as a mattress. While annoying, Mitra was more concerned that, whenever they finally got around to dealing with Seeming, the proprietor would have too many questions.

"Fuck it, let's deal with this later." Beauregard almost dug through her purse, but Mitra got there ahead of her this time because she nearly dropped Mollymauk and had to catch him.

"Four rooms." Mitra already had the coins laid out, stacked as neatly as casino tokens on the ill-kept counter. "Any further service will be paid for by individuals."

"Oh, very good." The manager, whose name was apparently Champ, scooped the payment off the counter in one quick motion. His greedy smile didn't prompt any reaction, thankfully. He dug through the drawers until the labeled iron keys were in his hand, on offer. "Your keys, Miss…?"

Mitra ignored his question and snapped up the keys, then handed out the room keys to individuals—Caleb, Beauregard, Tirane, and Keg—before saying, "Do not lose them. If you need to do something before sunset, now is the time."

"And what're you going to do?" Tirane asked, slipping her key into a pocket.

"Scout," Mitra replied bluntly, then stalked around and through the group until she was outdoors again. Away from the press of people and motivations she could still feel grinding against her patience like whetstones.

The Sour Nest was to the north and east. With the Iron Shepherds expected to arrive any day now, some sneaking was long overdue.

* * *

 _"Sending: Any luck with the scouting? We got Molly to a bed and he just passed the fuck out, so we're not doing very much."_

 _"Iron Shepherds have not returned. Guards on all walls of their fortress. Most of them look like hirelings. Riyaz could break it easily. Mitra out."_

 _…_

 _"Sending: Well, Riyaz is a dog now and Beau is getting laid. The Marduns don't visit. The Mighty Nein want to go to them instead."_

 _"Have them take Khalil, and order Riyaz to sit on Mollymauk if he does not rest. You can attend the meeting if needed. Mitra out."_

* * *

"I never thought being back from the dead could be so _boring_ ," Molly said to a thoroughly disinterested audience consisting of one black dog, a redheaded warlock, and an otherwise empty room. He'd drawn better crowds from day one in the circus.

As he'd been told—probably twice, since there had been a bit of drifting off in the middle of at least one conversation—his friends were off talking to their mysterious contact, while Tirane's friends were variously a) barricading the room and b) off being an extra pair of hands for the rest of the Mighty Nein. That left Molly with absolutely nothing to do other than lie around in a bed and "recover," as though he needed any reminders of how they'd all fucked up. Well, now he was laid up in bed and couldn't even entertain himself without someone getting on his case.

"It's not so bad." Tirane had a bowl of what could charitably be called "soup" on a tray, made from trail rations and whatever she'd been able to wheedle out of the manager. "I mean, you're alive, you'll see your friends again soon, and Lorenzo will die."

Molly did accept the bowl, but needed three pillows to sit up without swaying and thus his smile was a little less bright than usual. "Oh, so you're your team's optimist."

"And you're yours." Tirane sat back, nibbling on hardtack.

"That's…hm. You know, that's a fair point." Molly poked his spoon into the gurgling, boiling mass. It looked almost primordial. Well, what else was fire resistance for? "Between Beau, Caleb, and Nott… I guess I win by default."

"I kinda feel like that whenever it's just me and Riyaz." Tirane scratched at her neck where her goggle straps dug into her skin. "You know, uh, it's kind of weird…"

"Dear, I _am_ weird." Molly gestured at his horns and lavish tattoos with his free hand. "Sometimes you just have to accept it and push right through. If I spent all my time worried about being 'weird,' I'd never get out of bed in the morning." He gave a wry smile. "Oh wait."

"Not you," Tirane said, though she was smiling now, too. "I meant more, well, I was the one who talked my friends into helping, but I don't really know _you_. Nott's nervous and nice, Caleb's quiet and smart and kind of scary, and Beau's all scary, but I don't know anything about you other than how much they love you. Since you were kinda…dead. Or asleep."

"Close enough," Molly replied, setting the bowl of stew on the blanket, approximately in his lap. Fiddling around in the pockets of his still-torn coat, he retrieved his worn tarot deck and started to slowly shuffle the cards from hand to hand. "What do you say we play a bit of a game? Whoever draws the highest card gets to ask a question, and you'll get an answer."

"As long as you hand me that coat. I forgot to fix it earlier." Tirane held out her hand, and Molly slowly handed his rainbow work of art over to the new resident warlock. That thought still rankled, but not as much since entering the Run. They'd get Fjord back. "This is really pretty, by the way. I don't think I ever said that before."

"You have good taste," Molly informed her, though his usual smile was a little hesitant. He wasn't flirting, exactly, and neither was she, so this was half-uncharted territory. He continued to shuffle cards, until satisfied that he'd rigged the deck enough to make it work. "All right, pick a card."

Tirane stuck out her hand without looking and snagged a card at random, with her other hand occupied by a pair of tiny lodestones. Casting Mending took about a minute, so his coat would start weaving itself back together any time now.

"Oh, this one says seven." Tirane flipped her card around so Molly could see it, showing the Chariot. "What's yours?"

"Ten," Molly replied, as he flipped the Wheel of Fortune over. "So, I guess I get to ask you a question first."

"Is it like War, where we just keep trying to match cards until someone loses?" Tirane asked as she handed the card back. However, there was a brief twitch to her face that told Molly she was probably humoring him, just a bit.

"More or less," Molly said. With a flourish, he shuffled both of their cards back into the deck. "Well, then, what's your favorite color?"

Tirane smiled. "Yellow, I think. Do I get to ask a question back?"

"Not normally, but here's a freebie: My favorite color is purple." He held out a hand, flexing his still-unsteady fingers. "Convenient, right?"

"I'm pretty sure you just lied to me," Tirane countered gently. When Molly's usual grifter smile froze on his face for a second, she added, "It's all right. I lost anyway."

"Good to see you're such a graceful loser." Molly spread the deck out again. "Best two out of three?"

"Sure."

The game went on a little longer, with Tirane consistently losing every card confrontation and earning Molly three answers ("Thursdays," "strawberries," and "cloudy weather"), before she flipped Molly's coat open with a flourish and held it up so he could see. Much like when Jester had fixed the cart wheel before Labenda, before everything went fucking awful, the coat was entirely back to normal. It was as though Lorenzo hadn't killed him in it.

"It looks perfect," Molly told her, accepting the coat back and carefully folding it away from the bowl of cooling soup. "Thank you."

"Glad to help." Tirane held out her hand again. "And if you want, I can change how that stuff tastes. I mean, if you want. I know it's kinda garbage."

"I'm sure I've eaten worse. It's fine." And he had. Once Molly got past the mysterious crunchy bits that were probably burned, it mostly just tasted like meat gruel. It was, on several different levels, not the worst thing he'd ever had to choke down. Still, he didn't feel entirely comfortable eating while the not-a-dog and uncannily charitable warlock sat around fiddling with their stuff.

"Molly, can I ask a question anyway?" Tirane asked, once he set the bowl aside. The meal sat like a brick on his stomach, but it at least was _food_ , which kept his mood up.

"Sure, though you might not get the truth." He held his arms out, expectant. "What do you want to know?"

Tirane closed her ritual spellbook, then leaned forward in her chair and asked, "How did you meet your friends?"

"Ah, the thousand-gold question," Molly remarked. He laced his fingers together underneath his chin and leaned on them, just a little. "Well, if I answer honestly, I hope you don't mind if I ask the same question back."

"Works for me." And when Tirane said that, Molly saw Riyaz's floppy ears perk up out of the corner of his eye. Interesting.

"Well, the short version is that I saw a lot of very strange people in real need of a show and couldn't help myself." Molly held up a hand to keep any follow-up inquiries at bay. "You see, Yasha and I were a part of a circus show, the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities. Now defunct, sadly. One day, when it was time to hand out free tickets…" And while perhaps the story was a little embellished around the edges, it was almost the truth. Everything, down to Kylre's unintentional rampage to the part where they were all arrested at least twice.

"That's way cooler than what happened with us," Tirane admitted, once Molly finished his spin on things.

He still wasn't sure how long it would take to pay off Gustav's "debt to society" for bringing Kylre into Trostenwald without noticing he was a fiend, but they'd get stronger. Get better. There would be gold enough in the end. And Gustav wouldn't languish forever.

"Do tell," Molly suggested, while Tirane thought it over.

"Uh, I was a late addition." Tirane glanced at Riyaz, whose head was up in the air for once. "See, Khalil and Mitra are twins, right?"

Molly snorted. "Hard to miss. Do they always have to look alike, even in their disguises?" A pair of blue dragonborn, a pair of humans with the same features…

"No, but that's not the point. Well, they were raised apart and only got to making a fighting force, er, later? With each of their best friends joined up, too, they made a party kind of like yours." Tirane waved a hand at the window. "But they ended up coming _here_ , for some reason, and kidnapped Riyaz out of slavery."

Molly eyed the dog in the corner a little more carefully. He hadn't _seen_ any sign of the kind of lingering trauma that made Caleb go away in his head since they'd come to Shadycreek Run, but he hadn't exactly been up to looking for it. "I see. And then you come in?"

"Not for like a year afterward." Tirane turned faintly red. "See, I made a mistake and thought Riyaz was being mugged this one time, and kind of…dashed to his rescue? Even though I'd just gotten my warlock powers like, two days before. I figured I'd made a mistake when he turned into a dire wolf and started chewing on the guy."

Molly looked to her, then to Riyaz, then back to her. As she steadily turned a more embarrassed shade of red, his smile grew just a little at a time. Then he had to laugh, though it wasn't nice.

"So, uh, that's my humble start," Tirane said with a cough. "I admit, I kinda miss the other two. But if they were here, it'd be even harder to get _eleven_ people going than nine."

Riyaz gave a _whuff_ from the floor.

"After the experience we had, I'd say the more the merrier." Molly stuck out a finger and flicked one of his hanging horn baubles. He only had the sun left, so it was probably time to get a new one. Toying with them was easier than focusing on other things. And yet, he heard himself say, "Though I think one or more of us might call the last blow to Lorenzo."

Tirane froze. "And…?"

A pity he didn't have a perfect answer in mind. "You know… He killed me, but he used me to hurt the others. I wouldn't forgive either, but the second part seems worse," Molly said after a while, resting his hands in his lap again. It kept them from shaking. "It's a toss-up, really. I think I'd defer to Beau for once."

There was silence in the room for a little while. Tirane fidgeted with her long shirt laces for something to do with her hands, while Riyaz got up off the floor and slowly made his way over to sit next to her chair. Then he set his big furry head on the edge of the bed, in easy scratching distance of both of them.

"Well, depending on what Lorenzo _is_ , calling it may be harder than it has to be." Tirane was already rubbing Riyaz's dog ears. To Molly, it looked a bit like how Caleb tended to treat Frumpkin when the cat was actually a cat. And as soon as Tirane finished speaking, her whole body jerked as though someone had just whispered in her ear.

Not as subtle as Nott and Caleb's little Message sprees, then.

"What's your pet theory?" Not that Molly didn't have a few of his own. _Nobody_ who could cast that kind of magic ought to have been able to hit as hard as Lorenzo had in a direct fight. Molly wasn't sure exactly how he knew that, other than watching Caleb and Yasha and realizing there were some things people couldn't be built to do at the same time. Then again, there was Fjord's eyeball seawater sword…

Tirane bit her lip, then finally said in a rush, "I don't think he's human at all. There are some really nasty monsters who can use spells without components, and I think he might be one of those instead."

"Literal monsters don't have a lock on being complete sadistic arseholes," Molly said, though his thoughts were whirling too. Hadn't Kylre summoned imps without a problem? The merrows back in the Labenda Swamp had needed a staff to cast worth a damn, and that had _hurt_ , but not nearly as much as Lorenzo's little surprise. Not for the first time, he wondered exactly how much arcane bullshit was floating around behind the blank in his head, just waiting to be _useful_. "I'd want to say 'fiends,' but that's not all there is. The worst part is that whatever he is managed to keep it all under wraps from everybody for years, if Keg's anything to go by. That's not an easy thing."

 _Don't think about Kylre. It won't help._

Riyaz _whuffed_ again.

"Might be on the right track, huh?" Molly slowly reached out and scratched at Riyaz's ears. The dog-shaped druid didn't react, but Molly hadn't expected him to. He really preferred cats, overall. Cats couldn't keep him from moving by literally sitting on him. If he was kept in one spot by a cat, it was as much his choice as theirs.

Tirane nodded slowly. "Maybe something that heals really fast. Not a troll—Beau said she set him on fire and he _laughed_."

"Must've missed that." On account of being dead. Though he did remember the venom troll in the Labenda Swamp. Prior to this mess, that had been enough close calls for at least a month. But there was no rest for the wicked.

At least, not without some chatty enforcement.

"And there's no place to research around here even if we had the time," Tirane muttered. "I guess we're gonna have to do this the weird way."

"Oh? Do tell."

"We're actually gonna have to, uh, think up something." Tirane's pointed ears turned a little red, to match her face from earlier. "Sorry, our group is just really used to having a paladin and a cleric, too. For the big fights. We're kind of the sneak-and-stab types."

"Mn, I know how that feels. All too well, in fact." Molly's fingers clenched in the blanket. The thought of Yasha, Jester, and Fjord being held in a cage by that _fucking bastard_ felt like it'd make his Blood Maledicts just start firing without his permission. But at the same time, the antsy "I need to stab something that bleeds" rushing to his head seemed like an excellent way to die a second time in two days. It was like someone was constantly tweaking his horns, building pressure slowly just to see his reaction. "I… Honestly, I hardly care what happens to Lorenzo. Beau can have dibs. All that matters is that we get our friends back."

Tirane and Riyaz, still a dog, both gave him cautious looks. He could feel their eyes on him.

"Hold onto that thought," Tirane said as she scooped up the empty bowl of soup. Before she turned to leave the room, she added, "And get some rest. Lorenzo's not gonna hurt anyone ever again once we're done with him."

"I'll hold you to that," Molly told her. "At least, if I live."

Tirane pursed her lips. "Uh, maybe don't make that joke around the others."

 _Who's joking?_

* * *

 _"Sending: Molly's asleep. How's everyone else doing now, Khalil? Did you find anything? Did the Marduns offer to help? In any way, shape, or form?"_

 _"We could hire Taskers to take on the Iron Shepherds if we need 'em. Also, try using your other Sendings on Allie. Might need her."_

 _"Sending: And not Oceanus. Crap, I don't think either of them has teleportation spells… Wait, shit, this is my second Sending! That's not what I—"_

 _"At least they're your fast recovery type. But yeah, Snowball should come along for the ride. Lorenzo should arrive tomorrowish. We'll want everyone. Khalil out!"_

* * *

 _"Sending: Alena, is there any way you can get to Shadycreek Run in less than two days? We're getting everyone together to kill someone."_

 _"Uh, maybe? We'd need to find a wizard who's been there before. That alone might take a week. Lemme see and then we'll Send back."_

* * *

" _Oceanus here. You could have called before we left Nicodranas. What the_ hell _are you doing in the Run? And whose murder are you plotting?"_

 _"Hey, Snowball, I didn't know this'd be a whole_ thing _until like yesterday. But the guy we're targeting_ really _needs to die. Hurry it up!"_

* * *

 _"—and he leaves a dent in his bed bigger than he is! And there was a skull and Nila said it wasn't an animal. You can reply to this message!"_

 _"Fuck, shit, there's a chance someone might know what he is. Hey, Snowball, your god got anything for—"_

 _"We know what he could be? You can reply to this message!"_

 _…_

 _"Okay, Nott, I'm back. Yeah, see, there's this type of weird giant—"_

* * *

The fight, when it comes, happens like this:

A trio of bedraggled-looking beggars approached the front gate, not long after Lorenzo's caravan arrived back in the Sour Nest. The gates remain barred even as the first of them—some nondescript green thing half the size of an orc—railed passionately against the sins of slavery and kidnapping and generally made himself an easy target for an arrow in the throat. The other two were silent, but not one of the gatekeepers could see the mithral mail, the sword or shield or stowed greataxe, or the fourth and fifth member of their little band hanging out under an Invisibility spell. It seemed all like a game, just another Tasker-brand attempt to "keep the peace" in the most useless and obnoxious way possible.

Safe inside the walls, the Iron Shepherds had started to unload the carts of terrified captives. Once all of them were secured in the basement, the breaking could begin. After a night of drinking, of course. So what if there were annoying peasants out in front? They'd die soon enough.

The only warning the Iron Shepherds had was the death gurgles of their archers. Mitra, Beau, and Nott had scaled the walls, through grappling hooks or sheer stubbornness, and the Iron Shepherds' guards died either from cut throats and crossbow bolts or being hurled off the top with exactly as much mercy as the Iron Shepherds had ever showed anyone else. And with none of them under any illusion magic, their real appearances were in as nearly plain view as any of them could tolerate.

Lorenzo looked up and spotted them easily, because he was more perceptive than the rest of the surviving crew, and _that_ was when the third lowly peasant got a goblin's Message and twisted into an earth elemental to punch the gate down in a shower of wood splinters. The hulking beast stomped its way into the compound, flanked by a cleric and a paladin in full regalia, with three shadows in following in the monster's wake.

The opening move was, while not subtle, at least effective.

"Knock-knock, you bastards!" Oceanus shouted, his finned ears flared out as far as they'd go. While not tall or particularly bulky, the little cleric had a pair of lungs worth envying.

"Who the hell are _you_ supposed to be?" Lorenzo demanded, glaive held in a diagonal defensive stance. His other hand would be the focus for Cone of Cold. Oh, he'd seen Beau and Mitra and Nott, but between them and a pissed off rockslide, there was no contest.

"Fuck you, Lorenzo!" Beau shouted down at him, even as she took a running leap and landed directly on top of the wheeled cages Prado had _almost_ thought about unloading. The halfling's face didn't go white when he saw the furious monk, but that changed as soon as a hand crossbow bolt hit him in the side of the neck.

That didn't deter the leader. "You never learn, do you?" And with a grin stretching across his tattooed face, Lorenzo lifted a hand. "Guess I'll be sending you to visit your friend a little sooner than I thought."

Khalil's voice rang out in Infernal as he darted around Riyaz's earthen arm, skidding under and right into range, " **Not this time, fucker.** " His fingers snapped clear and loud even as the shouting started.

Alena didn't hesitate. As soon as Lorenzo's spell fizzled in his hand and the realization almost set in, the tiny blonde charged _directly_ at Lorenzo and started swinging with her longsword. With a ball of aasimar smiting fury in his midst, the hulking human-shaped monster needed to focus on the one carving him up first and foremost.

Across the field, Beau caught Prado between her and Nott, bringing him to his knees with a brutal crack to the temple with her staff even before Nott got her shortsword out and finished him off. A second hand crossbow bolt hit him just for good measure, but it was already over bar the gurgling. The two split up immediately, with Beau hurling herself directly at the flat-footed Ruzza before she could start singing. Nott, meanwhile, skittered across open ground to the cages.

Ruzza was already opening her mouth, trying to sing _something_ , before being cut off by "COUNTERSPELL, BITCH!" from Tirane. Invisible until now, the redhead stood with her jagged, sparking wand pointed directly at the opposing bard. Her spell ring flickered once before going out.

"Boss, you can do this!" Ruzza managed to shriek, just before Beau skidded into her personal space and punched her square in the solar plexus.

Ki pulsed in Beau's bones and _out_ as she punched a second time, third, and fourth, trying to break Ruzza's narrow jaw. "Fucking _stay down_!"

Lorenzo, bolstered by the burst of inspiration, slashed out twice with his halberd. His teeth were gritted, no longer smiling, as each blow landed solidly on the paladin that refused to give him any breathing room. "Not bad, little missy. But not enough."

Alena's weighted longsword bit deep into his leg. And her wordless counter-argument was three spells' worth of Holy Smite on her second swing.

"Lorenzo," Nila's once-sweet voice came out in a growl as deep as the forest's darkest depths, while she shifted out of sparrow shape and waded directly into the chaos. "I made a promise to you, though we have not met." She lifted one huge brown hand as dark clouds started to gather just overhead. "And I will strike you down!"

Lightning lanced down and struck Lorenzo's trailing leg, setting his entire body to shaking for a split second. Alena's hair stood on end beneath her helmet, but she ground her teeth and bounced a reflexive swing from Lorenzo's glaive off her shield.

And then the barbarian joined the fray. Juam, far larger than most of the combatants besides the resident earth monster, threw herself into the fight with wild abandon and froth at her lips. Battleaxe up, she charged for Nott—still busy with the cage's locks—and hit a snag almost instantly. _Again_ , her muscles weren't responding right and the little goblin just seemed to _sway_ out of the way of her attacks! Just trying to hit her seemed to be impossible!

" **You're going to die here!** "

And then she went blind just in time for Keg's axe to chop into her leg.

While his Blood Maledict took hold alongside Caleb's Haste spell and a Sanctuary from Alena, the red tattoo on Molly's hand popped like a blister. Shaking off pain and blood, he headed for the now-stunned Ruzza and, between him and Beau, four punches per five seconds and two scimitar slashes cut her down to size. They might've left her unconscious, but then a Guiding Bolt careened across the battlefield from Oceanus and saved them the effort of swinging.

Well, at least that was over.

"Beau, I've got this one—" Molly began, pointing Summer's Dance toward a crossbow-wielding mercenary they'd seen before.

"Got it!" And Beau rushed toward the other hireling with her staff already swinging by the time Molly Misty Stepped to the one he'd pointed out.

Seeing all this, Riyaz lumbered across the courtyard and, with something like a nod to Nott, swung one massive arm into Juam's face to bowl her over. The second multi-ton haymaker landed alongside a poisoned dagger Mitra hurled into her shoulder, for everyone's consideration.

Even as a glowing blue sledgehammer popped into existence just above her, Juam shrieked, "When I get up, I'll kill all of you!"

"Oh, shut _up_ ," Oceanus snapped as the Spiritual Weapon swung down.

Meanwhile, Khalil made into stabbing range of Lorenzo solely because Alena wouldn't stop trying to remove his limbs and the whole process kept the man thoroughly distracted. Shield up and rapier out, he lashed out with two viciously targeted thrusts at the back of Lorenzo's tattooed head and neck before anyone could do much about it.

Lorenzo _screamed_. Where the enchanted rapier bit into his skin, the flesh seemed to shrivel as though burned.

"Called it! He's an oni!" Khalil crowed.

But Lorenzo wasn't dead, and immediately swung his glaive around to try and remove Khalil's head from his shoulders. While Khalil got his shield up in time to deflect the worst of the blow, the glaive bit into the side of his neck anyway and splattered blood across the snow on the backswing. The second strike, however barely, glanced off of Khalil's shield. On a luckier day, Lorenzo might've tried to press what advantage he could get, at the less-armored of his two opponents.

Then a third hand crossbow bolt lodged just below Lorenzo's armpit, where his mail didn't quite reach. Across the field, Mitra was already rushing into the melee with her shortsword out and her fangs bared in a snarl.

Back toward the carts, Beau and Molly mangled one of the extra Iron Shepherds in perhaps half an attack sequence between them. Summer's Dance snapped out and caught the fellow in the eye with no mercy whatsoever, and Tirane dropped a pair of Eldritch Blasts onto the remaining crossbowman just before Beau rushed him. Leaping over Molly's still-extended arm with her staff as a vault, Beau caught the last mercenary in the throat with a kick as she landed, then a second roundhouse, and a third to slam his nose back into his skull.

Molly tipped the already-dead man over with his mundane scimitar's iced-over point, letting him hit the ground without ceremony. And just then, Nott's clever fingers finally finished off the lock with a perfectly-timed _click_.

Without waiting for anybody else, she dove into the cage and clambered over the heads of the captives. "Jester! Fjord! Yasha! Are any of you here?"

The almost-slaves were too terrified to respond, which about fit Nott's own feelings on this entire situation. But there was a little face in the back, blue-skinned and black-haired and really tiny, who looked familiar. A bigger, similar face loomed over the top, also a firbolg and sporting a black eye.

"You! You're Nila's son, right? And her mate!" Nott glanced around at all the faces looking up at her uncovered goblin features with fear, then swallowed hard. "Come on, let's get you all out of here!"

Lightning crashed outside. Lorenzo howled again.

"Uh, maybe in a couple more seconds!" Nott fumbled with her piece of wire, then pointed it out the door. "Caleb, they're not in this cart, but we're about to start opening the others. You can reply to this message!"

"We are managing out here, Nott. Please hurry."

Outside the warded cart, Caleb's Mage Armor glittered slightly as he darted out of immediate range of anyone who could point arrows or anything else his way. This meant he ended up beside Nila, her hulking firbolg frame almost counting as cover under the circumstances. Which was really utter and total chaos, between the rampaging elemental, the spells constantly flickering, the crash of steel hitting armor, and the screams of the dying. Fewer screams, now.

"I am here with you," Nila said in a return to her gentle tone, even as Caleb trembled against her back. "We will win together."

"You, ah, have a way with words," Caleb managed and flung a trio of Fire Bolts at Juam, who had just gotten to her feet. Not _again_. " _Verpiss dich!_ "

Juam gave a wordless roar and barreled into Riyaz, the most obvious target even as the floating Spiritual Weapon bashed her arm out of position. She started swinging, undeterred, only to chip tiny bits of rock out of the hulking beast.

" **You can't hit the broad side of a barn!** " Molly yelled in Infernal, and once again Juam's eyes went black from edge to edge, with blood trickling out of the corners to match the mess streaming down Molly's wrist.

"Hey, this is a lot easier than it was last time!" Keg hit her again with perfect timing, a hammer blow this time, and popped her knee out.

"Fuck you, you godsdamned devilblood! Does the boss need to kill you _again_ to make it stick?!" Juam whirled as well as she could, her weapon bouncing squarely off Riyaz's rock arm just before he punched her again. "And you! You traitor—raaaaaaagh!"

"Hey, up here!" Tirane waved both of her arms, catching Juam's attention first because Molly had darted out of immediate stabbing range with a cackle. Just as the barbarian's vision cleared, the half-elf grinned at her point blank. And then Tirane's metal wand sparked again, lightning leaping from the tip and blasting Juam off her feet in a blinding flash. "Hah!"

"Please die." Nila did not smile. Nila did not raise her voice. But a bolt of lightning, again, arced out of the cloud overhead and slammed directly into Juam's chest.

This time, the barbarian stayed down. Just to be sure, Keg slammed downward with her hammer again, and again, and again. And when Juam's skull was so much meat jam, she stopped and leaned a little on the end of the weapon, glaring down at the mess she'd made.

With Juam dead, that left Lorenzo. Beau and Molly were already heading for him, and Keg hefted her weapons to follow.

Tirane, meanwhile, darted up to the cages just as Nott was exiting the first one, an entire group of chained-together prisoners trailing her.

"Not this one," Nott told her immediately, while each beaten-down person emerged. She was already directing them to hide behind the carts until it was over, jabbing a clawed hand in that direction. "But get back in there. I'll get everyone out."

Tirane darted off to get back in Counterspell range of their only living enemy, and Nott went back to work.

"You, get away from th—" Lorenzo started casting, though he'd just run out of friends.

"Cram it!" Tirane shouted over him, her free hand pointed squarely in his direction, arcane energy cutting his spell off before it could fire. "Fucking take a hint, asshole!"

Then Mitra stabbed him in the arm with a shortsword at the same time that Khalil jabbed at his exposed elbow with his rapier, and it was a lot of screaming.

The second cage was easier than the first. Even if Nott didn't have Haste tickling at her mind and making her fingers fly, she got through the lock far faster than usual. Flinging the iron door open, she was already grabbing the first set of chains she could see and dragging on them before she realized the one wearing them was a familiar two-tone green.

"Fjord!" Nott shouted in surprised joy and redoubled her efforts to haul her friends out.

Behind Fjord were Jester and Yasha, and though Fjord was about as strong as Caleb, the other two were the real force behind all three of them tumbling out of the cart. Yasha got her feet under her, and it was all Nott could do to get out of the way as they landed in a pile. All three of them had their wrists and ankles chained together, with ropes keeping them stuck to each other and unable to move much at all. Lorenzo's crew had also gagged all three of them, and those had to come out too.

Nott had a solution for that. Casting Mage Hand with a whisper, she got to picking locks at the same time her little projection pulled each gag free.

"How'd—" Fjord coughed as soon as he tried to talk, his normally-smooth voice utterly wrecked.

"Shh!" Nott hissed, then pressed a healing potion into his now-freed hands. "The fight's not over until everyone's dead."

Going by the voices doing the shouting, that couldn't be too much longer.

"Nott, I missed you so much!" Jester had tears running down her face when Nott freed her, immediately swooping forward and almost crushing her goblin friend in a hug. Her fingertips were bleeding and cracked when Nott had a chance to examine them, she looked caught between joy and terror, and didn't that just sum up these last few days? "I tried calling the Traveler, and Yasha the Stormlord, I know she did, but I was so scared—they said someone _died_ — "

Yasha's hands came unbound with a _clang_ as she tore the manacles off with only a bit of help from the Mage Hand and Keg's axe/hammer combo, her eyes already locked on the last enemy. Half-staggering to her feet, she lurched away from the cart and their prison.

"Yasha?" Jester whispered.

Yasha's eyes landed on Molly, whose bright Infernal cursing and flying blood was making Lorenzo's attacks bounce harmlessly off plate and shields, and she shuddered as much with relief as exhaustion. But when she spoke, even through the crack of disuse and pain, her words were clear: "Someone get me a weapon."

As though by magic, Alena's greataxe flew from the crushed gates and landed squarely at Yasha's feet. From some distance away, Tirane waved and turned her attention back to the mob justice beatdown. When Yasha tore the weapon out of the ground, its heft was almost reassuring.

This could kill.

Yasha strode forward; each step was a little stronger, a little faster.

Lorenzo was pinned, blasted by a firbolg's lightning and flanked on two sides by a tiefling and a paladin. He couldn't get any of his spells off. He had his hands on his glaive, he had his fucking self-healing wounds and was staring at Molly like he was surprised to see him breathing and that was _enough._ He'd been allowed to live in this world for too long.

"LORENZO!" Yasha roared, hitting full speed in three steps and meeting Lorenzo's glaive in four. Yasha's muscles bunched behind the magical axe, and her first swing bashed his arms down and out of position. Her eyes went dark, her plaited hair black all the way to the tips. Spectral, skeletal wings flared out from under her heavy shawl.

"You—" Lorenzo tried to do something. Cast a spell, perhaps, but it fizzled again as someone yelled behind Yasha.

And Yasha brought the greataxe down directly on his collarbone, splitting mail and cleaving down into his torso. Bone hardly stopped her, blood couldn't, and by the time the momentum was gone, there was an entire chest cavity cracked open like an egg and steaming in the frigid air. And shaking, crying, _furious_ Yasha almost collapsed on top of the corpse before she could balance on the haft.

Hands helped her up and away from the body as it started changing, warmth blooming in her chest from healing spells and familiar voices. And there Molly was, pressing a kiss to her bloodstained forehead as her rage died down. She latched onto him with both hands and honestly didn't know if she'd ever let go. There was his voice, still lilting and soft, "Shh, shh, you're safe now. I've got you."

Yasha hugged him tighter.

Across the way, Mitra retrieved her weapons on the way to helping Nott with the prisoners. Chains were broken, whether by lockpick or strikes from Keg's axe. Nila snatched her son up into her warm arms, pressing her face against his hair as tears ran down her face.

"CALEB, BEAU!" Jester was already in the air, diving for both of them before they could react. Wizard and monk alike landed in the slow with an overjoyed cleric on top of them.

"Thank you, Nott," Fjord was saying while the chaos went on, but in a happier tone.

"Oh, come down here," Nott insisted, and tugged Fjord's bracer until he was almost bent double so she could hug him around his neck. "You all need to never get kidnapped again! I'm—I'm gonna get you all _leashes_."

"We'd just pull you along," Fjord told her, though he was smiling. It looked a little different with his tusks halfway grown in, but it was still a nice smile. Despite everything.

Nott wiggled down into the snow again. "Well, you can't blame me for trying." Her ears twitched toward the still-transformed druid. "Hey, Riyaz? Go check if there are any more prisoners."

The earth elemental rumbled in a way that sounded kind of like a question.

"And then _smash_ _everything_!" Nott confirmed.

With a second rumble, the hulking shape melted down into the earth and mud.

"…New friends?" Fjord asked once it was gone.

"Oh, you have _no idea_!" Beau might've started to laugh, but Jester hugged her harder. "Ow! Jester, I can't breathe."

In the end, there was only just enough time to catch their collective breath before it all had to come crashing down. Caleb and Oceanus set the fortress on fire after Riyaz smashed it almost down to its foundations, leaving an entire crowd of ex-slaves, adventurers, and generally terrified people to leave the Sour Nest as soon as possible. After taking anything of value, of course.

In the end, Ophelia Mardun may not have been happy with the _method_ used to kill all of the Iron Shepherds because of its staggering lack of subtlety, but her smuggling lines were secure. No one much cared about her opinion past this point, because it was time and past to skip town. The Mighty Nein and Associates left her with a pointed invitation to visit the Gentleman in Zadash instead of immediately following the order to actually drag her back, because _fuck_ if they were taking an escort job right after that mess. They still had some time.

And only after the dust settled did anyone have a chance to really think.

* * *

There was no victory party. Leaving aside the dire lack of alcohol, everyone was too tired to try after leaving the Run. With the other former captives either heading home (Nila and her family) or scattering across the region with whatever gold they could get (most everyone else), that left two large adventuring troupes in dire need of a nap. Keg had volunteered to stay with the Mighty Nein for as long as it took to get back to Hupperdook, where she planned to get a job that had nothing to do with iron or shepherds ever again. That still left… Beau wasn't sure what to call them.

"Us?" Tirane seemed surprised when asked. Once again, she sat on a fallen log and had her weird spellbook open on her lap. She and Caleb had been swapping spells earlier, at least until Caleb almost passed out in his inkwell. Nott had him now. "Oh, we never thought of a name, really. Khalil called us 'the gang' to his dad once."

"Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue." Beau sat down next to her, leaning on her staff a little. Only a day and spare change out from Shadycreek Run, and already the air seemed clearer. "So, what're you gonna do now?"

The immediate future was taken up by naps and lots of Goodberries, at least for a while.

Honestly, between Jester being unable to sleep without Beau curled up next to her, Yasha never letting Molly out of her sight after confirming he _had_ been killed by Lorenzo, Caleb and Nott being practically glued to each other and everyone else, and Fjord coughing up saltwater almost every few hours at night, it was hard to see how their plans could stretch too far into the future for at least a while. Beau had no nightmares she'd admit to, not to this audience.

"I dunno. You?" Tirane asked. "I mean, before this? We were taking a year off to just, like, do our own thing." She closed her spellbook. "I think since we're all together again, maybe we might just stay that way this time."

"Sounds weird." Beau was picking individual blades of grass and rolling them slowly into mushed-up balls in her hands, just for something to do. "After the week we had… I can't really see us leaving each other alone. So, I guess… Maybe we're overdue for a vacation or something."

Tirane made a neutral noise. Then, "I hear Nicodranas is nice this time of year."

"Eh, maybe Port Damali until the heat dies down." Jester hadn't ever said how long it'd take for nobles to let go of their grudges, but a month and a half didn't seem long enough. Still, the Gentleman could find them there if he had to. "We gonna see you all on the road?"

"Dunno. Maybe someday?" Tirane looked up to where Oceanus was complaining under his breath while, nonetheless, bustling around a picnic blanket and casting Create Food and Water enough for every one of the fourteen place settings. "I think it'd be fun."

"And maybe next time we'll be equals," Beau said dryly.

Tirane grinned. "Next time? Next time, you'll be saving _us_ if things go wrong, I'm sure of it. Just you wait."

"Sounds like fun."

* * *

 **AN:** Everything that happens in this chapter is at least mostly rules-legal, barring a little fudging around team attacks that turn into Matt-less HDYWTDTs. If you're interested, try to guess the loadout of gear and techniques everyone's using whenever it's not clear.

Ending notes:  
\- The M9 end up getting a couple of magical items as gifts after this sidequest, including:  
1\. Tirane's +1 Wand of the War Mage  
2\. Alena's +2 Greataxe, which Yasha used to kill Lorenzo  
3\. Oceanus's Ring of Feather Falling  
4\. Mitra's Ring of Protection  
5\. Everything Nott Stole From Riyaz's Cottage (Ring of Necrotic Resistance, Priapt of Health, and two Greater Healing Potions)  
\- The Traveler was responsible for the wacky travel times around Shady Creek Run, which both Caleb and Beau noticed.  
\- The Gang (as they call themselves) later do, in fact, make their way to Nicodranas and have an actual group vacation. And probably fight a dragon turtle or something, because adventurers attract trouble.


End file.
